


Luna Noctiluca

by Pink_Siamese



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: BDSM, Dom/sub, F/M, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-30
Updated: 2010-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:40:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 26,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_Siamese/pseuds/Pink_Siamese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stella West, the young maid in Beckett's household is full of secrets. When he offers "an addendum to her employment" both master and maid find their lives changed forever by sensuality, passion, magic and fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The cobbles were slick underfoot, the heavy air soaked with the scents of flowers, soot, slaughtered fish, rotting wood. A waxing moon hung in the sky. It glazed the puffy clouds with tarnished silver, gleamed white off the walls. The flames within the streetlamps guttered and sputtered. Port Royal slumbered beneath a patchwork of stars. She clutched the cloak around her thin nightgown, held the hood over her hair. She followed the streets down to the sea.

She bypassed the docks, slipped through the undergrowth, and crept down to the thin rime of pale sand that marked the place where land gave way. She hunkered down, toenails inches from the placid water. Her loose hair spilled over her shoulders. The tips drifted near the surface and flirted with the rising tide. A cool breeze stirred, prickling the sweat on her face. She took in a breath and held her hand out over the murmuring water. Her palm hovered, close enough to feel the life. Her fingers trembled at the sea's salty breath.

The girl closed her eyes. She felt her loneliness, the unceasing draw of her homeland, the aching as it welled up out of all her secret places. She pulled her hand back and gazed into the indistinguishable darkness of the horizon. The ships creaked and rolled, knocking soft against their moorings. Night sounds rose all around her.

One day the sea would bear her home.

Today was not that day.


	2. One

"Mrs. Fletcher. Our Lordship desires a word."

Everything about this request was incongruous: the time of day, as it was nearly supper; the messenger, a clerk of rather sinister appearance as opposed to a body servant; the character of her employer, who considered interaction with domestic staff the lowest possible use of his valuable time. She blinked at him. The cook's surprise so great that for a moment she forgot herself.

"Now?"

The clerk stood in the doorway with his hands clasped behind his back. The bearing of his shoulders and the tautness of his spine conveyed his military origins. He appraised her from his vantage point, indifferent to the clank of pots and the oppressive heat and the chatter of six different voices all talking on top of each other. A corner of his mouth turned upward. It was a smile like cracking stone.

"Yes. Now."

Adelaide Fletcher dried her hands. She patted her gray hair and straightened her apron, then smiled at the man as she approached him.

"Do forgive my impertinence, Mr. Mercer," she gushed.

"Such a request…it only caught me by surprise! There are two new boys in the kitchen, and keeping watch over them is such a tiring job. Oh, well, you can probably imagine. Tell me, sir, do you have children of your own?"

Mercer said nothing. He turned his back on the cook's babbling flow of words and strode up a narrow set of stairs. She hurried along behind him, still talking, holding her skirts in both hands. The climb stole some of her breath, but not all.

"…goodness, it has been hot lately! Miss Farnsworth, a slip of a girl who only just arrived from England, she fainted on her first day of work in the kitchen. Whenever she feels faint I've told her to put her hands in a bowl of cool water. Works like a charm."

The stairwell delivered them into a well-appointed hallway. Mrs. Fletcher slowed a little, her tongue lulled by the lavish furnishings. Underfoot was a long blue Turkish rug. The walls were sheathed in cool white silk and hung with garden paintings. A cool sea breeze drifted in through open mahogany doors. A bouquet of lush yellow roses sat on a small table. The blossoms were falling apart, bleeding their intoxicating fragrance into the softened air.

Mrs. Fletcher looked around. Her domain was the kitchen; there were others to prepare the trays and pour the tea. She had never seen this part of the house.

Mercer escorted her into a spacious sitting room. There was a veranda, and the double doors were flung wide open to the sparkling harbor. The breeze toyed with yards of netting, fluttering it along the stone walls. An unlit chandelier hung from the ceiling, fitted with squatty white candles. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave an encompassing view of Port Royal. of A massive map of the world dominated one wall. An impeccably dressed man stood before it, his posture at ease. His hair was powdered, drawn back into a white pigtail, and tied with a black velvet bow. He was a small man. Mrs. Fletcher, who knew her employer only by reputation, was astounded by this fact.

"My Lord," said Mercer.

He turned around. His blue eyes flicked to Mercer, then took her measure as he moved away from the map. His body contained a slow built-in rhythm that would've seemed out of place on a larger man. His fingertips briefly touched the surface of the desk. His face remained impassive. He stopped and stood before her with his feet apart, his hands clasped behind his back. The aura about him was a curious package of grace, softness, and a brand of elegance that was both cold and sharp.

Adelaide felt her palms begin to sweat. She clutched her skirts. "Lord Beckett." She curtsied. "Sir."

"Mrs. Fletcher." Beckett regarded her for a moment, then jerked his chin at Mercer. "Leave us."

The clerk slipped away without a sound.

"Your Lordship," continued the cook. "What can I do…?"

The gentle, sinister cadence of his reply sliced across her words. "You can shut up and listen."

"Oh." Mrs. Fletcher blushed.

Lord Beckett resumed movement, strolling along the periphery of the room. He placed one deliberate foot in front of the other, as if pacing out the borders of his territory. He touched things: the curtains, the rolled headrest of a fainting couch, the painted surface of his map, the gleaming narrow waist of a brass candlestick. The contrast between his placid demeanor and the coiled restraint in his limbs made Mrs. Fletcher think of a cat. He studied the portraits hanging on the walls.

"Miss West," he drawled. "What do you know about her?"

Adelaide blinked. "Miss West?"

"Indeed." He enunciated every syllable. "Miss West."

"She's now a chambermaid, sir," she said. "I'm afraid kitchen work did not suit her."

"You don't say."

"I do, Lord. She hails from England originally, or so some say, the rumors are quite extensive as they will be in a kitchen. It is said that her family…"

"I want to know only one thing," snapped Beckett.

"Yes, Lord?"

"Tell me." Those cold eyes looked over his shoulder. "Can she read?"


	3. Two

The moon was full. It drifted high over the Caribbean, fracturing the water into a million glittering gems and bathing Port Royal in its silver glow. There was no wind. The heavy draperies of Lord Beckett's bedchamber were tied back, and moonlight flowed in through the windows and pooled on the floors. It brimmed over ornate rugs, gilding the dark wood, caressing a vase of flowers. Well-placed candles flickered, their orange light mingling with deep shadows.

He stood before one of the windows, his eyes riveted to the spectacle of moonlight on water. The sounds of the harbor drifted to his ears, muted by distance and the lateness of the hour. He focused on the flow of his breath. He waited. He had no doubt that the girl would come. He had all the information he needed.

A hesitant tap sounded on the door. He turned.

"Enter," he said.

The heavy door creaked open. A young dark-haired woman peeked inside, then slipped through. She was carrying a lantern. She closed the heavy door behind her, then stood in front of it and looked at him. Her hair was still pinned up in that day's style. Her figure was indistinguishable beneath the frumpy blue dress she wore. Her skin was pale and her features unremarkable, save for her eyes. They were large and dark, bearing a slight Oriental tilt. But it was not the tilt that interested him. Her pupils had dilated in the half-light, rendering them a luminous black. Looking at them was like looking at two pieces of the night sky.

"Mrs. Fletcher told me true," he said. "You can read."

Miss West withdrew a piece of parchment from her pocket. She placed in on a small table. "Yes, Lord."

He moved away from the window. "Then you know what you are doing here."

She looked away. "Yes, Lord."

"I wish to offer an addendum to your employment." He opened a drawer and withdrew a small sack. He bounced it on his palm, producing the unmistakable clink of coins. "I trust you'll find my compensation suitable."

Miss West looked at him. He caught a quiver in her chin, a slight tremble in her hand as she held it out. He looked into her eyes, but the emotional doors were closed. Her face was blank. She spoke with a firm voice. "I should like to count it."

"Of course." He placed the sack in her hand.

She stepped to one side, restoring the distance between them. She placed the lantern on a table and opened the sack, emptying its contents into her hand. He watched her count the coins, her small lips moving as she tallied the numbers. Her fingers were long and adept, her hands those of a lady. Or rather they could have been; as toughened and roughened by work as they were, they'd never pass genteel muster. She poured the coins back into their purse and handed it back to him. He took it, tossing it carelessly onto the bed.

"Do we have an accord, Miss West?"

"Yes, Lord." She lifted her chin. "We do."

A tiny smile touched his lips. His voice became confidential. "Excellent."

Miss West stood with her hands folded, her spine ramrod straight. "What would you have me do?"

Lord Beckett situated himself in an upholstered chair. He propped his feet on a stool. "Take your hair down."

The corners of her mouth tightened. She closed her eyes and reached up, pulling the pins out one at a time. She gathered them into one hand, her hairstyle unwinding, the thick pile of dark curls falling to ruin. She put the hairpins beside her lantern and combed her fingers through her hair. Unbound, it fell to her waist. She gathered it up in her hands, tossing it over the backs of her shoulders.

"Nice. Very nice indeed." He smirked. "Now, Miss West, you will take my hair down."

She looked bewildered. She hesitated, approaching his chair. She circled behind it and stood there a moment. She lifted her hands. They hovered over the top of his head. They lowered, sensing the heat of his body. She drew them back. Her fingers curled in the air. She bit her lip.

"My Lord," she said. "I…I've not touched a man's hair before. I don't know how it's done."

"It's very easy. Remove the pins. Remove the ribbon. Apply your fingers in the manner of a comb. It's so simple a monkey could do it."

Miss West's fingers trembled. He smiled at the minute sensation of her fingertips as she sought the pins, then withdrew them with utmost care. Powder rubbed off on her fingers, coating them. She untied the velvet ribbon, then hooked her fingers in the hair over his temples and raked them back, drawing out the curls. His scalp prickled at the unaccustomed pleasure of the sensation. She did this again and again, releasing clouds of powder into the still air, dusting his shoulders and the back of the chair, coating the floorboards beneath in a thin layer of white. He sighed, allowing his head to rest in the palms of her hands. She squeezed his scalp. She gathered up his hair, a dark blond beneath the powder. She let it fall against the back of his neck.

"Really." His tone iced over. "That is quite enough."

"I'm sorry, Lord," she whispered. "Forgive my impertinence."

His hands tightened on the arms of the chair. He stood up in one forceful motion, turning around toward her. She stumbled back from the chair, watching him the way one would watch a wild animal. He pulled off his waistcoat, his eyes cast away from hers. She shrank away from him. His jaw was clenched. His nostrils flared. She hugged herself, smearing powder on the sleeves of her dress. He hauled his blouse overhead and flung it across the room. She willed herself to be still. He strode to a bedside table. His bare back gleamed in the moonlight. He turned around and her breath quickened. He held a flogger in his hand.

"My Lord, I…" She kept her eyes on his, fingers fumbling over the front of her dress. The tremors raced through her body. She found the hooks. Her hands shook as she unfastened them. Her voice lost all strength. "F-Forgive my impertinence."

His hand encircled her wrist. He yanked her hand away from the protection of her body. He slapped the handle of the flogger into her palm.

"Do not break the skin," he hissed.

Lord Beckett walked to the foot of his bed. It was a tester bed, a stout old thing carved from oak and shrouded in velvet draperies. Within the draperies were hidden two thick lengths of rope. He fished them out and grabbed hold of them, wrapping each around his hands, arms stretched out in prisoner stance. He braced his knees against the footboard and hung his head. She stared at him, fascinated by the taut angle of his shoulder blades, the straining musculature in his arms. His knuckles were white. With every breath, his ribs slid beneath the skin. She moved close to him, taking in the tufts of hair in his armpits, the concavity of his tailbone. He hung there by his hands and bore her scrutiny. He waited.

Miss West looked at the flogger in her hands, then did a most curious thing: she lifted the soft strands of leather to her nose and smelled them.

Timid, she pulled her arm back over her shoulder. The first stroke landed across his right shoulder. He sucked in breath, the line of his body stiffening. He released the air in a hiss. She looked at him, then at the leather dangling from her hand. She swung again, putting a twist of her body into it. The leather made a sharp sound. A delicate pink line appeared across his ribs. She crossed this line with a second. He breathed through his mouth. Her third stroke turned the skin red. He flinched, body twisting to one side. Her fingers flexed around the flogger's handle. She peered at his face. She stung him across the back. His mouth hung open, his breath quickening. She striped his ribs. His hands tightened on the rope. She aimed for the dip in his tailbone. He gasped. She lashed him there again and he whimpered, buttocks clenching.

He had started to sweat. The drops gathered in his temples and rolled down the sides of his face, drawing tracks through the powder clinging to his skin. Beads clung to the tip of his nose. His hair stuck to his cheeks. She could smell him, hot salt and musky herbs mixed in with some other smell, something low and secret, like the jungle after it rains.

She swung the flogger. He moaned. She swung it again. He moaned. He leaned into the footboard and gasped like a fish out of water. He shook all over. She hesitated. She stood behind him, her feet planted apart, the handle of the flogger clutched in both hands. She looked at his back, the pale skin now livid and crisscrossed with red welts. He waited for her, panting. She lifted the flogger over her head, then brought it down with all her might. His body clenched and his breath quickened, and he uttered a moan that climbed up to a high-pitched whimper before breaking completely.

She flinched away from him. Something in that sound unstrung her, sliced across her heart and drew stinging little droplets of shame.

He let go of the ropes. His body slithered down over the foot of the bed, laying there for a long moment like a broken thing. He took in a few steadying breaths.

Miss West looked at him, the flogger in her limp fingers. Her breath came a little faster. Her cheeks felt warm.

Lord Beckett stirred. He reached for the sack of coins. He turned and flung them at her.

"Get out," he said.


	4. Three

The servants' quarters were located behind the main house, a series of low stone buildings that stood just beyond the cultivated ground, partially hidden in a grove of ratty old palm trees. Compared to those of other estates, the servants' quarters at Beckett House were stout and well-maintained; the windows had glass in them, the roofs were shingled with slate, and stone construction made them a match against the moody winds and sudden hurricanes. The palms offered a degree of shade through the hottest part of the day. The coconuts, however, were a nuisance. They fell at whim, bouncing off roofs and crashing into rain barrels.

"Bloodydamned things," muttered old Mr. Stephens, flinching as one of them thumped onto the soft ground and rolled off toward the edge of the grove. With a commotion of feathers and disgruntled squawking, a small herd of chickens scattered. Mr. Stephens was a stooped man dressed in threadbare but well-maintained clothes, his thinning white hair drawn back into a ponytail. Mr. Stephens had once been a butler, but old age had demoted him to a sometime gardener and sort of general caretaker. The estate kept chickens, geese, and pigs. Though all of the animals were in his charge, he spent much of his time chasing the chickens. The chickens spent much of their time fleeing the coconuts.

Miss West sat on the steps leading up to her tiny quarters. She shared her rooms with a red-haired harelipped girl who worked in the kitchen. Her name was Flora McHenry, a rail-thin Irish import with a thick brogue crippled by the deformity of her mouth. At night, she wanted to talk. Miss West was content to listen. By flickering lamplight Flora often told her, the words half-formed and enthusiastic, that Miss West was the best friend she'd ever had. Miss West thought this a rather sad statement. Even sadder still, the girl was in love with Mr. Mercer. The stony-faced clerk showed no interest. He stalked about the house, a silent ghost summoned in the name of retribution. There were rumors that he'd killed. Flora refused to believe it. Miss West found the idea easy to swallow. There was something about his eyes, a subtle feeling, as though they spent bored moments searching out all of your vulnerable spots.

Miss West was still dressed in her chambermaid's uniform. She was taking advantage of the fair weather, using it to illuminate her attempts at mending. Her blue frock was old and coming apart at the seams. It had seen three owners and many long days working in taverns and other places of ill repute. Her needle flashed in the bright sun. Her supper sat in the dirt next to her feet. A raggedy-eared cat sat there just as bold as brass, nipping pieces of fish out of the broth. Miss West bit off the end of her thread.

"You know," she said, "I should think one of these days the poor things will just die of fright."

"Aye, Stella." Mr. Stephens stood with his hands on his hips. Stray feathers clung to the muddy toes of his boots. "It would make catching one of them ever so much easier."

She smiled as she picked out a crooked stitch. "Take care you don't chase them into the gardens."

"It would be more than their miserable feathered lives are worth."

Stella turned the bodice over and lifted it to her scrutiny. The meager lace was coming apart. She noticed the powder stains on the sleeves and a strange feeling rose in her. It was tidal, coming in drowning waves of hot and cold. The sweat crept out on her forehead. Her cheeks felt warm. Her lips felt cool. She lifted the cloth to her nose, inhaling the scent. She smelled talcum and sweetness and an undressed odor, like the pelt of an animal in its prime. A deep-seated embarrassment swept through her. To disguise the blood in her face, she picked up the bodice and shook the sleeves briskly. The memory clung to them. She licked her fingers and tried to scrub them out.

"You haven't touched your stew."

"No. I don't like it much," she said. "I'm afraid it doesn't suit my digestion."

"Shame, that."

She dropped the bodice into her lap. She wanted to put her fingers in her mouth. She wanted to suck them. Her body started to shake.

"Not at all." She kept the quaver out of her voice. "It pleases the cats."

"You don't want to let Mrs. Fletcher catch you," he chuckled. "She isn't in the business of cooking for cats."

"Pardon me, Mr. Stephens."

Miss West gathered up her dress and fled up over the stairs. She slammed the door on his startled response, flinging the material across the room. It hit the wall and slid down onto her bed, where she climbed onto her knees and pounded the bodice into the mattress. She struggled with her might not to scream. She flailed against her helplessness. She flung the dress like it was a pile of dung. She pummeled on it with her fists.

_You, you, you!_


	5. Four

There was a cat in his room.

Lord Beckett wasn't sure how it had got there; perhaps the creature had fled a rival, scuttling up a tree and making that leap of faith out into a narrow windowsill. Once inside, he imagined it was seduced by the lingering scents of forgotten food and pestiferous rodents. It was a clever feline, to have escaped the notice of the domestics. The cat sat out on his diminutive veranda. It crouched next to a potted plant as the rainstorm lashed on, soaking it to the skin. It shivered and regarded him with luminous yellow eyes. It scrunched itself down into a tiny shadow. Electricity crackled distant over the water, producing stutterflashes of light.

Silky black fur. Gleaming eyes.

_Luna noctiluca, Luna shining in the night. Yes, kitty. Your eyes are the moon and you are the night._

A moth fluttered about one of the lanterns, large and soft, a tender shade of green with spots on it like staring eyes. The delicate wings made a sound like rustling paper. It hovered close to the flame, clicking off the sooty glass. With one quick move he cupped both hands around the insect, ensnaring it. The antennae tickled against his palms. He shifted into a lazy stance, smiling a slanted smile. He cast an eye toward the cat. The cat returned the favor, all bated breath and twitching ears. Lord Beckett held one silken wing between his fingers. The moth flapped in a fever pitch, its legs clutching his skin in a futile, whispering embrace. He snapped the wing in half.

"Come here, kitty." He lowered himself to one knee. "I've a lovely morsel for you."

The cat got to its feet. Its tail whipped back and forth.

"Yes." He breathed the words. "That's it."

Lord Beckett was very patient. The cat sidled up to him. Its ears flattened, and the sleek triangular head darted forward and snapped the moth out of his grip. He chuckled, watching as the animal raced back into the lee of the plant. It coiled its tail around its feet and held the twitching insect down with one dainty paw. It bent down and began to eat.

_Even a feral cat has a price._


	6. Five

"Don't open the window. You'll let all the bugs in."

"If I don't it will be impossible to sleep."

The blankets rustled. "All right then. If you must."

Stella West climbed out of bed. She picked up the candle and ran barefoot across the stone floor, lifting the skirt of her nightgown with her other hand. The tiny flame flickered. She placed the candle on a battered chest of drawers and stood up on the balls of her feet, hands seeking the brass catches. She grunted a little and twisted them open. She swung the panes of cloudy glass outward and the cacophony of nightsounds swelled. A gush of cool air moved through the room. The candle flame twirled and sputtered. The mosquito netting rippled in a gentle current, flowing back and away from the window. The outside smelled strongly of flowers and the bitter sea. Stella put her face to the wind.

"Much better," she sighed.

"I don't know if one ever gets used to this weather."

Stella went to her bed. She fanned herself with neckline of her nightgown. "I'm not sure."

Flora sat up. "Do you ever miss your homeland?"

"I do. Do you?"

"Nay, I never miss that horrible place. Rats everywhere and too many mouths and never enough to go around."

Stella drew her legs to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her ankles, resting her chin on her knees.

"I like it here much better." Flora's loose hair picked up sparks of copper from the candle's weak light. She was long-faced, endowed with mismatched features and a liberal spattering of freckles. Her nightgown hung askew on her bony shoulders. "There's enough food and enough work and no one falls asleep in the winter only to never wake up again."

A cat jumped into the window. It had found its way out of the darkness, lured by the remembered scent of kindly woman and the taste of fish stew. It arched its back, tail whipping in search for balance. It cocked its ragged ears forward. Flora held out a hand and made cooing noises. The old tom gathered himself, then made a graceful leap off the windowsill. All four feet touched down at the head of her bed. Flora giggled and stretched out her fingers, stroking the animal's striped fur. The giggle transformed her face, made it ingenuous and open, a stoked hearth at which to warm the heart. The tom nuzzled against Flora's hand. He started to purr.

"There's a lot of luck here, I think," said Flora. "All the cats deserted me mam's house long ago. Tis a bad omen ever there was one, to be abandoned by cats. This was afore she died, o' course. I like how there are cats here and that Lord Beckett doesn't have them run off. There are some who do, you know. Men find themselves jealous of cats. Seeing as he's a navy man, it might be what makes the difference. Sailors are a superstitious lot."

Stella blew out the candle and climbed into her bed. Darkness filled the room, slowly mitigated by the strains of moonlight filtering through the palms. Landmarks drew themselves out of the gloom: drawers, vanity, the outline of Flora's bed. Stella drew the sheet up over herself. "I'm tired."

"Me too."

"Good night, then."

"Did you see Mr. Mercer today?"

Stella sighed. She put her face in the pillow.

"I think he has a new hair ribbon. It looks rather dashing, if I do say so myself. I want to serve, but. Mrs. Fletcher says I'm not ready. Just tea to start with. She says its too much. What do you think?"

"It's for Mrs. Fletcher to say."

"I think I could do it."

Stella rustled around beneath her covers. Even with the window open, the air in the bedroom felt still and oppressive. She picked up her pillow and turned it over to the cool side. When she did, her fingers brushed against something she hadn't noticed before. She pushed the pillow to one side, propping herself up on her elbows. A wrapped bundle sat there. It was slightly shorter than her forearm and narrow, wrapped up in some sort of silk and tied with cord. The faint light fell over her shoulders. She looked across the room at the other bed. She could see Flora's knees tenting the blankets, and a long thin arm thrown over her head. Just that magnificent hair, all flopped about in a pile. Stella settled onto her side, placing her body between her hands and the eventuality of Flora's attention. She started to untie the cord.

"Don't you?" The Irish girl's voice had taken the pensive quality that preceded one of her long, heartfelt confessions. "You worked in the kitchen once. How hard can it be? The girl they've doing it now is green as springtime and prone to making all manner of mistakes. "

"She's French," said Stella. _And comely. Not that I'd say such to your face._

"What of it?"

"It's fashionable."

"It's because she's pretty, isn't it?"

Stella worked her way through the knots, unwinding the length of cord. There was a lot of it; the mysterious object had been bound up tight.

"She can't even make a proper cup of tea!"

"I don't know if that's true." Stella peeled back the edge of the silk. It was a mellow shade of ivory, with a folded and stitched-down edge. It was embellished with a thin line of dark blue ribbon. Her breath stopped. Ice flowed through her stomach and trickled down to her thighs, where it dissolved into something else. "You'd have to ask Mrs. Fletcher."

"She'd not tell me the truth." Flora's words percolated with bitterness. The ropes under her bed creaked as she shifted position. "I know for a fact that she can't pour to save her life. I should think you would at least tell me the truth. Is it because she's pretty?"

Stella held her breath. Her fingers trembled slightly as she unrolled the pillowcase. A knife fell out onto the bed. It was of simple yet handsome construction, plain steel tucked into an unadorned leather sheath. Her hair fell into her face as she picked it up. A black hair ribbon had been tied around the handle. Traces of powder clung to it. She wound it around her fingers, rubbing the velvet with her thumb.

"Stella?"

"I don't know." She snuggled her head into the pillow, shoving the knife beneath it. Her pulse knocked against her voicebox. "Twouldn't be fair, but maybe."

"Stella? Are you well?"

"I'm tired."

Flora fetched a sigh. "All right, then. I'll leave you be."


	7. Six

"Enter."

_Daughter of a merchant seaman. Mother frail and in the care of nuns, cloistered away in Cuba. Illegitimate child of a near-destitute duke, the last of his monies pledged to her passage south in a posthumous attempt to settle the debts of his youth. Trick baby of a toothless Tortuga whore._

Flagrant, screaming sunset.

_She materialized onto the Port Royal docks a year before, a maiden born of fog and doldrums._

All these things he had heard.

Lord Beckett sat in a chair out on the veranda, torn petals of jasmine bruised into the stone all around his feet. He held a cup of tea in his hand. He gazed out over the water at the dying sun, its light reflected into bits of glowing ash scattered across the sea. The storm had been a brutal one. His plants lay ravaged in their pots, stripped of their leaves and beaten of their blossoms. The gardens were a mess. His roses had been hit the hardest, decapitated by the shearing wind and scattered like silken entrails. Only the palms remained impervious.

_Red sky at night, sailor's delight._

Cold steel slid beneath his chin. All initiative deserted his limbs. A folded piece of parchment, wax seal broken and crumbling, landed in his lap. Lord Beckett closed his eyes. Fingers crept into his ponytail, burrowing themselves into the powdered strands like small animals. Her hand twisted into an abrupt, painful fist. He let out a voluptuous sigh. Miss West hauled his head back, bending his throat over the back of the chair. He grunted and the teacup fell from his relaxing fingers. The china shattered, dousing his toes in lukewarm fluid as the edge of the blade scraped up one side of his neck, a whisper like silk against sandpaper. She nuzzled his hairline. His toes curled into the wet stone floor. She yanked on his hair, pressing the flat of the blade into his bottom lip. He opened his mouth and his hips bucked and he arched up in the chair, running his tongue along the edge of the blade. He uttered a cracked little groan.

Miss West let the knife fall out of her fingers. It landed on his thigh and rolled sideways, clattering onto the floor as her hands took hold of his face. She bent her head, nose sliding along his. He gripped the back of her neck and she let out a little moan, sucking in his bottom lip, biting into the soft flesh. He pulled her down and their mouths lunged together, smothering themselves in a hungry, slippery, gasping kiss.

Lord Beckett's fingers tightened on her nape. The kiss broke on her whimpering cry. He whispered into her mouth, smoky and sinister inflections: "Desist."

She let go of his face. A flush bloomed in her cheeks, creeping down to spread across her neck. She stood up and took a deep trembling breath, scarlet breaking like a wave across her gleaming breasts. She made an ineffectual gesture at her hair, unwinding in sticky corkscrews and hanging around her shoulders in fluttering streamers. She retrieved the knife and curled it close to her stomach. She pressed the handle into her loose skirts. She bit her swollen, reddened bottom lip. He took pleasure in her discomfort, eyes marking her progress as she fidgeted toward the railing of the veranda, showing her back to him, giving her gaze to the darkening harbor. He sat sprawled and at his ease, knees flung apart, slouched down into the plush velvet upholstery. She struggled to steady her breath.

"You haven't yet apologized." A smirk hovered on his lips. "Why is that?"

"I-I don't know, my Lord."

"Do look at me when I'm speaking to you."

Miss West started to turn, hesitated, then completed her about-face and leaned into the railing.

"That's better. Isn't it?"

Her eyes skittered to one side. "Yes, Lord."

"Come here."

She abandoned the railing, her steps slow and small. Her skirts dragged through the spilled tea, sucking up the brown stains, clicking the shards against the stone.

"Get on your knees. Mind the broken china."

He spread his thighs and she swept pieces of cup aside with the toe of her boot. She twitched up her skirt and knelt between his legs, snuggling her hips up to the seat of the chair. His thighs relaxed on either side of her waist. She turned her head, averting her eyes from the bulge in his black trousers and the languid look on his face. He took hold of her chin.

"Now, Stella." He redirected her focus. "Where are you from?"

"Does it…does it matter?"

"Come now." He drew her face closer and rested his lips on her temple. "It's such a tiny, commonplace, insignificant bit of information," he murmured. "Surely you can part with it?"

"Overseas," she whispered.

He brushed her with his nose, pressing the faintest kiss to her hairline. "Whereabouts?"

A light tremor passed through her body.

"You see," he continued, taunting her with his rough skin, "I've heard conflicting accounts. And there is the manner of your accent. Some days there is a definitive flavor of Dorset. Others, a touch of Westchester. I've caught a breath of Liverpool. All of which makes me wonder."

The corners of her mouth trembled. Tears slid down her cheeks.

"I shall ask you again." He looked into her eyes. "Where are you from?"

"My Lord," she said, her voice husky. "My past and my origins are not for sale."

With a slight shove, he released her face. He leaned back in the chair. "You know what to do," he snapped.

Stella relinquished the knife, unsnapping his trousers with unsteady fingers. He cupped the back of her head and guided her mouth down onto his cock, groaning a little as her face burrowed into his crotch. He started to thrust his hips. She moved her head in time, whimpering as he made fists of her hair. Her hands sought out the arms of the chair and held on. He moaned through his teeth. She gagged on his surge of semen.

Lord Beckett pushed her away. Stella fell onto her ass, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. He let his head fall back, his breathing ragged, limbs all loose and akimbo. She coughed a little into her fist. His upper lip glimmered with sweat. His eyes were closed.

"Your money is on the table beside the door," he panted.


	8. Seven

Steady, monotonous, hissing into docile waters, a sea the color of cloudy turquoise: this was nighttime rain in the Caribbean. There was no lightning, which was good. Only water. It drowned the raucous cry of insects and nightbirds in its roaring throat.

The smooth rocks were wet and warm. The palms snapped like waterlogged pennants. Wild hibiscus splattered across the sand like overripe fruit.

There was a depression in the rocks, carved out like a shallow bowl. Stella lay curled up in this place, knees tight to her chest beneath her sodden skirts, her hands wedged beneath her cheek. She shuddered a little in the rain. Though she was crying, it didn't matter: rain or tears, the water would go where it could. All paths led back to the sea.

_I want to come home._

The tide had risen around her nest of rocks. She was marooned, a tiny island. She put her face in her knees, wrapped her arms around her calves. She made herself smaller. Her hem touched the salt, soaking the tea out of her lace.

A whispering from the back of her brain:

_Not yet._


	9. Eight

The following morning dawned beautiful and sun-struck; Stella bustled through the bedrooms in the east wing, fresh linen balanced in a basket on her hip. She followed specific instructions laid out that morning by her superior, an old quadroon that had been working at Beckett House since long before it came under the propriety of His Lordship. Miss Eulie Smyth was an imposing presence, tall as any man, with stern features and steel-gray hair worn pinned up beneath a faded cotton cap. Her kind, calloused, practical hand had managed the estate through three previous owners, five of their wives, fifteen of their children, a rotating door of staff, and numerous personages hailing from all illustrious corners of the British Empire. Miss Eulie's directions were composed directly from a list of Lord Beckett's preferences: fresh flowers in every room; windows open to the wind, barring inclement weather; all linens rinsed in a mixture of rosewater and sandalwood.

Stella lifted a stack of folded linens out of the basket.

There was a letter at the bottom of it.

She snatched it and fled with it out onto the veranda, where she turned her back on the French doors and cracked the distinctive seal and unfolded it to the morning light:

_On the morrow it is my wish that you seek reprieve from your afternoon duties long enough to apprehend the bowl of sugar-lumps and spirit it away somewhere secluded, at which time you should take extensive precautions to ensure that you are alone._

Once secure in your hiding place, you shall make yourself comfortable and place your hand beneath your skirts, and you shall play with your cunt until it grows slick and juicy. I want your breath to come faster; I want your pearl at attention. Only this smooth and heated nectar is acceptable. I caution against proceeding while it is merely sticky, for I have a sensitive nose and I assure you that I can tell the difference.

Use your fingertips to apply this essence to each lump of sugar. Take care not to dissolve them; that is for my cup of tea alone.


	10. Nine

"Marie's taken ill with a fever." Flora adjusted the front of her starched white apron. She patted her hair, upswept and pinned beneath a lace cap. "Bless her poor sick soul and all, but Mrs. Fletcher's allowing me to serve the tea, can you just believe my luck? Though it troubles my heart, that another girl's misfortune should be my gain."

"Stop fretting," said Stella. "Else you'll undo all my hard work."

The two young women stood in their quarters, the curtains drawn back and the front door propped open to admit the light. A small round hand mirror balanced on a warped rosewood shelf. Flora glued her eyes to the glass, turning her head this way and that, bending her knees to get a better glimpse of her hair.

"An extra shilling, just to serve the tea! Think of it! And an afternoon spent out of that festering steam-vent of a kitchen. Do you suppose the windows will be open? That there will be a cool breeze moving through the parlor?"

"I don't know." Stella brushed a fly from Flora's shoulder, then removed a pin from the corner of her mouth. She affixed the upper right-hand corner of the apron to Flora's bodice. "It is entirely possible. Lord Beckett favors a breeze."

"If there is a breeze," Flora vowed, "then I shall enjoy it to the fullest!"

Stella giggled, stepping back to scrutinize Flora's appearance. "There, now. Look at you." She grabbed the mirror and stepped backward, attempting to provide a full-length reflection. "You're all kitted up and ready to go."

"Thanks so much, dear." Flora squinted at herself, tucked a stray bit of hair beneath her cap, then kissed Stella's cheek. "Wish me luck. Hopefully I'll not cock it up."

"You'll do no such thing," said Stella. "You'll see."


	11. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in this chapter for violence against animals.

The following evening there was a delicacy in the air, a cool kiss borne out of the virility of a blazing sky softening into the gloaming. It whispered of blue twilight, intimated a generous outpouring of stars and the blessing of a sickle moon. The breezes blew winsome. Calm waters murmured against the shore, gentle at the pilings and cradling the hulls of sleeping vessels. The flames sprang to life across the town of Port Royal and flickered against the encroaching threat of night.

Chickens scattered at Stella's approach. Flora was still back at the house, elbow-deep in scalding hot wash water, fighting the urge to daydream through the drone of Mrs. Fletcher's haranguing voice. It would be full dark before the redhead found her way home.

Stella unlocked the door. Inside their tiny room it was almost dark. Just a bit of light fell in through the window, keeping the shadows at bay. She glanced at her bed and gasped and dropped her bonnet and clapped her hands over her mouth, taking a giant step backward, her ankles gone weak and her body numbed. She tripped over the threshold and almost sprawled out onto her back. She slammed the door and crept up to the edge of her bed, approaching it with exaggerated caution. Her hands shook up around her face.

Her sheets were marked with an irregular smear of blood. The pillow was as she'd left it, flung into the corner and crumpled. Her blankets were peeled back, bunched in a careless pile at the foot of her bed. The stink of the blood swarmed into her nose, gagging hot, sheared metal, spilled life. Pinned into the bedding was a familiar face, a beloved friend rendered into a grotesque sculpture of blood-soaked fur. The eyes were cloudy, pupils blown with fear and anguish. The tattered ears were laid back. A pink tongue jutted at an obscene angle. The sorrow burned in her chest, stinging tears filled her eyes. The image blurred. Thankful for such mercy, she didn't wipe them away.

Her chin trembling and her nose clotted with snot, her heart hurting and full of bewildered turmoil, Stella got on her knees and placed a tender palm on the cat's head. She stroked him, wincing at the unyielding flesh, ignoring the blood that smeared into the ruffled fur. She did her best to love the cat, to pour into him all her fond memories. She honored his passing, barbarous and vulgar though it may have been. What sort of empty, spiteful soul could commit such atrocity upon a blameless and sweet-hearted creature?

Tied to the long, thin blade was a folded piece of parchment. She wiped her eyes with a forearm, fumbling with the knots on the string. She untangled it and stained the back of the note with sticky blood fingerprints:

_I would not see him fall to ruin; brought low by such a baroque and tortuous form of love._

The sobbing broke over her then, dragging her down into a heap. She bawled into her musty mattress.


	12. Eleven

"My Lord, the information you've requested. It has, shall we say, fallen into my hands?"

"Do share, Mr. Mercer."

"The girl. Both of them, actually. They're well-tied to a house of ill repute, place in Tortuga by the name of the Purple Hibiscus. Employ chiefly Negresses, leastways as prostitutes. Their domestics are white. Chambermaids, kitchen girls, and the like."

"How do you mean, both of them?"

"Flora and Stella both, my Lord."

* * *

Stella threw away her sheets and wadded up her featherbed and threw that away too. When asked about her bedding, she lied and blushed and made allusions to her monthly courses. The letter she burned. The knife she tossed into the sea. She wrapped the poor cat in a piece of quilt, said a brief moonlit prayer over him, and buried him in a far corner of the garden. She dislodged the roots of a rose bush in order to do it. She thought he would be at peace there, forever asleep beneath Lord Beckett's prized golden flowers.

The following evening, she returned home from work to find a summons from Lord Beckett waiting beneath her pillow.

She burned that letter, too.

* * *

"How did tea go for you? I never did ask the question."

"Very well, actually, thank you so much for asking. Though since Marie's feeling herself again, I don't think I'll be performing the service again any time soon."

"Did you like it?"

"Well yes, I did. Though Lord Beckett did a most curious thing."

"What is that?"

"He sniffed the sugar."


	13. Twelve

Stella paid for her defiance with a second blow to her equilibrium: early the following evening, she came home to another unwelcome presence in her bed.

This time, it was Lord Beckett.

He stood up as she closed the door. The light of a single candle danced off the walls. He wore his shiny black boots, but the rest of his clothes were so out of place that her mind refused to assimilate them: his blue trousers were faded and patched, the tails of his dingy white blouse billowed around his thighs. His neck and collarbones were bare, snarls of chest hair poking through the tangle of loosened laces. A long tattered black cloak hung askew from his shoulders. His hair fell clean and soft around his shoulders, the color of dark caramel, all traces of powder absent. His cheeks were dusky with a day's worth of stubble. Stella just stood there, her cap hanging from loose fingers. Her lips parted. He strode the distance between them before she had a chance to speak.

He backhanded her. He did it hard, knocking the breath out of her throat. She cringed away from him and he smacked the other side of her face, signet ring engraving a shallow cut into her cheekbone. Later on, it would spread into a bruise. It would swell across her skin like the shadow of a butterfly's wing and she would long for him to kiss it, to lick it like a smear of blackberry jam; the ache of brushing it with her fingers would make her wet. Right now there was no room for such fancies. The room swelled with a heady combination of rage and fear; the ardor between them reeked, mingling like broken bottles of cologne. His rage was pure. It suffused his face, transcended what she knew of him and pushed her into unfamiliar, beguiling, magnificent territory. He grabbed hold of her shoulders and slammed her into the wall. She cried out, low and husky upon impact. He shoved her again. Something fell off a shelf and clattered to the floor. He shook her until her jaws rattled together.

"Where…were…you…last…night?" Every word enunciated with breathy, savage precision. "Where? Where?"

Stella tightened her jaw. "I was here."

"And who gave you permission to defy me?"

"I did."

He took hold of her throat. "Sass me again."

"Let go of me."

He leaned in close. "The merchandise does not spurn the buyer," he whispered, lips hovering near her ear. "Rather I think it's the other way around."

Stella clutched onto his wrist. She squeezed, tendons popping out along the inside of her forearm and tried to twist his hand away, but his grip was too strong. She dug her nails into his wrist, feeling him wince. She heard the breath suck in through his teeth as two them broke through the skin and slicked blood beneath her fingers. He pinned her to the wall, his palm moving as she swallowed, his fingers firm enough to communicate threat but nowhere near brutal enough to kill. She pushed at his shoulder, but he braced his feet into the floor. Her lips drew back from her teeth and she hauled back and smacked him across the face. The blow was flat and declamatory and jolted the fortitude out of his hand. Stella put her own hands to her neck and kept her eyes on him, fingertips stroking the pink patches on her skin, retaining contact with that lingering trace of his presence. He looked at her through strands of fallen hair, panting, holding his bleeding wrist. Wisps of hair stuck to his temples. A lurid handprint bloomed across his cheek.

"Get out!" she screamed.

"You're fighting me," he said. "Why?"

"Just get out," she whispered.

"I don't think I will."

Stella stepped away from the wall. She walked toward her window, one hand still rubbing at her neck. She glanced at him, unpinning her apron from her bodice. She reached around in back of her waist, moving with a shaken and dreamlike slowness, pulling the knot loose and allowing the apron to fall away, where it collapsed into her practiced arms.

"I shall ignore you, then," she said.

He kept close watch on her movements, absorbed in the way she folded the crisp ruffled linen. "Do."

Stella opened her wardrobe and placed the apron in a drawer. She kept her back to him. "Flora will be home soon."

"Not especially," he said. "I expect she'll be tied up with chores half the night."

Stella sighed.

"Go on," he said.

Stella looked at him over her shoulder. She held his eyes for a second, fingers working at the tiny black buttons of her shirtwaist. She eased them through their recalcitrant holes, mindful of their hand-stitched edging and the fabric loosened with a day's worth of wear. She rolled her shoulders, sliding the plain material down around her arms.

"Fascinating," he said.

She draped the shirtwaist onto a hanger. "What is that?"

"Watching you."

Stella loosened her skirt. She pushed it down and stepped out of its voluminous black folds, then picked it up and shook it out. She snapped it briskly like a rug. The candle flame dipped and sputtered. Underneath she wore a chemise and petticoats, her curves trammeled by a faded pink corset.

"I've not seen a woman undress before. You do it with such efficiency."

Stella fastened her skirt to a hanger. She pushed the shirtwaist aside, making room for the skirt's loose abundance of fabric. She reached behind and tugged the laces on her corset, loosening the tight knots with dexterous fingertips. Once the laces were straight, the garment seemed to sigh. Stella wriggled at little and coerced the silk panels, encouraging laxity between them. She extracted her chemise from beneath it, dragging it up around her armpits. She crossed her arms and pulled the wrinkled cotton over her head, draping it over the back of a rickety wooden chair. She cradled her bosoms in her hands. She looked down one shoulder and offered him her profile.

"Lord," she whispered. "I'm rather indecent."

He moved closer to her. She stiffened but did not pull away, standing stock still as she withstood the touchdown of his finger on the nape of her neck. He ran it like a feather along the top of her shoulder, generating a light shiver that followed its course. A blush rose into her cheeks. He smirked and touched the side of her chin. Her face turned away from it, toward him, as he had known it would. He skimmed his palm along her jaw. Her brow furrowed, lashes fluttering along her cheeks. His thumb brushed her lips.

"Open your mouth," he whispered.

Stella hesitated, then did as he bid. Her eyes remained closed while Lord Beckett retrieved a sugar cube from his pocket, placing it on her tongue. Her eyes flew open at the familiar grainy texture and its attendant burst of sweetness. She sought his gaze, holding it while her flush deepened to scarlet and she closed her lips. She crunched the sugar between her teeth. He leaned forward and brushed his nostrils against her mouth, inhaling the scent of her breath. He cupped her face and planted a delicate kiss on her bottom lip.

"Lovely," he sighed. "I want you in my rooms tomorrow night."

"Yes, Lord."

"Do not defy me again."

"I-I won't."

Stella felt a swirl of air. She would not open her eyes until the front door closed, and when she did she was left alone with the candle and her confusion.


	14. Thirteen

Lord Beckett lay on his back with his limbs flung wide, throat arched and vulnerable upon the crinkled pillow. The sheets tangled around his bare perspiring skin. Oppression hung in the air, stinking of the lowering tide; it seeped in through the open windows and slithered along the moist stone floor, leaving a sheen of condensation in its wake. His lips were parted, his forehead smooth. His breath came in slow, measured snores. A sleek black feline body stretched along his ribs, tucked up close to him like a soft shadow. His loose fingers held the cat's tiny backside. A long thin tail draped across his wrist, coiling back up, delicate tip touching the crook in his elbow. The cat's pointed black chin rested on his shoulder. Her ears twitched. Her small chest rose and fell, synchronized with her human cradle. A white moon peeked through flapping curtains. It floated on a scrim of lead clouds, fattened like a sail filled with wind.

_He rises up, drifting out of the blackness, void so old that it has no name, that it borders on the trailing edge of creation. Out of this and into a mundane dream, a place there the sun and the stars claim the sky at the same time, where the flames never recede from the sky. Time is poised, sliced between east and west. It balances like a blood drop at the edge of a blade. It breaks off, plunging through the darkness, gaining momentum before splashing back into that deep black velvet place where he cannot move. The weight of a thousand years is on his limbs, a stone buried between his ribs. A corridor of memories flashes by, lingering echoes cracked out of the shells of childhood, cold spilled yolk that creeps into the bones and chews upon them with needling rain and a sky like the bottom of a tarnished silver pot. Mother-breast, dusty rugs, black mud, broken strings of coral. Everything scatters. Parts of himself roll away and drop off the edge._

His eyes fly open. His breathing is harsh. Clarity pulses with his blood, rushing into the spaces of his mind and submerging all sense of disorientation. This is his room, frosted with the ambient light of the moon. All is brought into sharp focus. The wardrobe, the night tables, the dressing chair, the darkened lanterns. The cat is still in his arms, a silken sense of warmth tethering him to this succession of seconds, petals peeling off a flower and spiraling down one by one. He feels something, some presence. For a moment there is nothing and then there is an explosion of fear, intention crackling through his muscles and sizzling there, a tree felled by lightning.

He cannot blink. He cannot move.

A strange creature crouches over him, blue taloned feet planted on either side of his hips and turned outward like a frog, thighs drawn up close to its haunches. A weight of pebble necklaces swings forward, turquoise and greenstone, his bedding shifting beneath the thing. Its silhouette is something dredged out of the depths of Hell. At first he fears that it is an animal, some huge clothed monstrosity cobbled together from frog and bird and stag and nasty fanged predator, but the silver light of the moon slants across it and he sees that it is female, human despite this festoon of wild features; it is endowed with huge gold-skinned breasts and ripe nurse's nipples, great big things like bursting chocolate berries. Gold medallions and pebbled necklaces hang between them. It is crouched over him, this trinket bedecked were-woman, skirt of blue and green and red and brown tucked up between her knees, long bluish green feathers tucked in her belt and arching from her dirty black hair. Her head is decorated with stiff, stylized branches of hair and wrapped cord and tiny gold cuffs. Strange geometric shapes emblazon her cheeks and limn her chin. Heavy jewelry sways and clinks from the ears. A gold ring loops through her septum. There is a pale-bladed stone knife clutched in her grinning mouth. The sharp wavy edges slice into her skin, dripping scarlet down the sides of her chin. Its handle is shaped like a squatting little turquoise man, thin white feathers curling out of its rectum. Tiny blue gold-edged stones have been set into her worn white teeth.

Cutler's eyes are wide. He tries to speak, but his tongue has been weighted down.

She leans forward, bringing her face into the light. More light falls along her body, outlining rounded thighs and plump dimpled arms, smooth shoulders like precious amber. She sways over him, breasts swinging like heavy gourds. There are dark blue bands tattooed around her fingers and her wrists, around her arms and around her neck. She leans closer still and he is encircled by the smell of the sea, enveloped and drowned in the sweetness of onrushing rain. Beneath the slashes of obsidian paint and the pretty pink scars he discerns high cheekbones, full lips, arching eyebrows like a soaring bird's wings. Her nose is like a beak, her sloping forehead that of a raptor. Her eyes are painted with a pale green mask, lids outlined in black. It takes years for them to open, time looping itself over and over into a stretch of infinity. The midnight-colored fringe of lashes lifts up, disclosing like a pair of slowly parted curtains. Her eyes are shaped like a cat's. The pupils are dilated into oblivion. Looking at them is like looking at two pieces of the night sky.

She removes the knife from her mouth. He pushes his head into the pillow as it drifts closer to him, shedding pinpoint drops of blood. They fall across his skin, a sprinkling of ruby dust. Her lips move as she caresses the edge along the muscles in his throat, a wind blowing in through the windows. He smells seaweed and flowers and the spirits of a million tiny fish. The touch of the blade is feather light, full of malice, teasing as thorns skittering across the tender surface of ripe fruit. It tingles in his body. He yearns toward it, hips lifting up. His weakened fingers twist into the sheets. The wind swells with the soundless motion of her lips. It stirs the canopy on his bed, blows papers off his desk. Her breath is laced with the scent of torn leaves and fresh brimstone.

"Ch'en." It is the sound of a thousand females speaking at once, young child to aged crone. The words flap the curtains, knock over candlesticks, sigh from all corners of the room. "Acuecucyoticihuati. Ixik. Coyolxauhqui."

She rejects the knife and takes hold of his face. Her fingers feel warm and strong, like they are tethering his skull to the earth. He closes his eyes and subjects himself to her. The torrent in his body stills. He opens himself to her presence. The blood flows to his crotch. She presses the noble line of her nose into his. The wind slows into feminine breath. The spaces between their brows touch, foreheads melding together. His cock stiffens. Her sense of awe passes through his skin. Her feverish fingers tighten. Her many voices meld into one timorous whisper:

"Huracán."

Lord Beckett gasped and sat upright, sheets falling away from him. He clutched at them, looking around the inside of his room: the wardrobe, the night tables, the dressing chair, the darkened lanterns. The cat, unhappy at being disturbed, sat grooming herself on the foot of his bed. She regarded him with lazy yellow eyes. He struggled out of slumber, taking a deep calming breath through his nose. This sparked a brief memory, the fading scent of flowers and fish. He tried to recall the significance. It fell away from him, hitting his subconscious and shattering into a million pieces.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Got up. Walked to his desk. He withdrew a bit of parchment from a drawer. He fetched a quill and a pot of ink and began to write:

Ch'en.

Coyolxauhqui.

Huracán.


	15. Fourteen

Stella curled like a fetus within her bed.

_To slide into sleep is to slide under water, the hermetic embrace of such a moody element claiming first her skin, rushing into her nose and dominating her mouth, stripping the focus from her vision. The last to succumb are her ears. This is always disorienting, a smeared second of divorcing from air before turning tail and rushing downward to meet the change, a spiraling descent into crushing blue arms. Silver, pale, marine, cobalt, bent and rippling light. The sun is reborn at this perspective, slipping its round gold skin, transfiguring into a shimmering net. Shafts of energy pierce through ponderous depths. They weaken on their way to an imperious chill-locked bottom._

The winds come, picking up a slow pace, ascending into a terrible howling fury borne from a boiling black fortress of clouds. Lightning shatters the rain-lashed sky. It is bottomless rage fed by the slow revolution of time; even the sea herself cannot remain steadfast against it. The ocean gathers her skirts and surges, splattering back onto herself in a constant craven shower of immolation. Stella is coughed out of the waves, cast up onto sand. She is unrolled like a tattered bit of ribbon. She lays there in a heap, shaking arms curled over her head. She wallows in her fear of the sky. All at once the veils of rain are crisped away. Strangling heat creeps over the land, smothering the sea into submission. The wind groans as all moisture is sucked out of it.

Stella slits her eyes. Light is everywhere, it is blinding. No stones, no shells, just endless flanks of white sand. No clouds soften the hard boiled blue sky; the sun is a tyrant, bloated and mocking, drooling infernal heat from between broken gold-encrusted teeth.

Movement ripples out of the heat-shimmer. It swims out of the pale simmering hills, slinking forward on four dainty paws. It is scruffy and moth-eaten, a sylph conjured out of despair, striped with the colors of a field dying in drought. It drips a gossamer blood-trail. It winds backward through the dunes, a careless length of jeweled lace disappearing on the slumped horizon. Stella watches it approach. All fear leaks out of her chest, rides out on her breath. The creature carries its death-wound, a mouthful of flowers cradled in its battle-scarred face.

The cat folds back its chewed ears, laying the bunch of flame-colored marigolds with infinite tenderness upon her fingertips. At their touch, renewed vigor seeps through Stella's skin. She picks them up. She pulls the petals off one at a time, stuffing them into her mouth. She chews and swallows and gazes at the cat. The cat gazes back, tail curled around its haunches. The ragged hole in its chest oozes blood. Scarlet flows down over the slicked paws, soaking into the sand. It watches her eat and cups its ears forward, the golden eyes narrowing into contented slits. The cat begins to purr. The wild bitter taste of the blossoms lingers in the back of Stella's throat.

The cat takes off.

"No!"

Stella hauls herself to her feet. She puts her arms out and sways a little, unsteady in the dizzying heat. The sun is molten weight on her head.

She follows the trail of blood. She can smell it cooking into the hot white sand, rich and nauseating.

It leads her to a field of bones. Bleached and ominous, they lay in sharp tangles on the vast expanse of sizzling sand. In the center of them stands a man-shaped figure. He is crusted in white, bleached garments fluttering around him, the baking heat pooled around his ankles like quicksilver, shivering and agitated. She stumbles closer. A sirocco blasts her in the face. She navigates through the maze of bones, some of which have been sharpened into ivory knives that graze her ankles. She sheds tiny drops of blood, ruby beads inhaled by the greedy dust. There is pain, but it is bearable. It is a worthy sacrifice, the price of admission into this place of bones, the thirst of Mictlán and the nethermost nourishment of Xibalbá.

This man is not a god. It is Cutler Beckett.

Every inch of him is painted white. The thick plaster like stuff clings to his eyebrows, runs in streaks down his limbs, clings as powder to his eyelashes. His hair is molded in alabaster mud. His ears are pierced with engraved ivory plugs. A necklace of tiny finger bones hangs around his neck. Black bangles gleam on his wrists. His garments are tattered and thin and flutter in the stupendous desert heat, their borders of painted skulls and obsidian knives sapped into pale ghostly gray by the snarling sun. He is staring off into nowhere. His eyelids twitch. The insides of his lashes are rimmed with moist pink. His eyes are the delirious, distant blue of the desert sky.

"I care not for cursed Aztec gold. My desires are not so provincial."

Stella woke to a face soaked with tears. They were more salt than water, and they burned upon her cheeks.


	16. Fifteen

Lord Beckett dispatched with granting pompous permission to enter; he simply opened the door.

Stella's knuckles had scarce tapped when it swung inward, framing him in the glow of a solitary lantern. They looked at each other through a veil of insubstantial shadows, she with her small candle held in front of her face and he with his fingers resting on the doorknob. One palm braced against the frame. His snow white shirt hung askew from his bare neck, careless ruffles of lace flopped across elegant wrist bones. His hair was brushed out, tied back in a loose ponytail. She held his eyes and pursed her lips and with a strong puff of air extinguished the candle. He grabbed her upper arm and pulled her inside, closing the door with a forearm behind her neck. The brass candleholder hit the floor. It splattered the worn narrow floorboards with translucent drops of wax.

"I have something for you," she said.

"Oh yes?" He pushed her up against the door. He lowered his face into hers, baptizing her mouth in his warm breath. "And what is that?"

She leaned back into the wood, reaching into the front of her worn blue bodice. Something emerged from between her breasts, stout and black, coaxed forward by her teasing fingers. It pulled free in a cascade of supple, black, sweaty strands. She withdrew the flogger from her dress and wafted it beneath his nose. He lifted the leathers to his nostrils and buried them, closing his eyes, inhaling their animal scent. She pressed the handle into his palm.

"This," she said.

He looked at her face, fingers tightening on the handle. Her eyes flicked back and forth, weaving through his gaze and anchoring it, drawing it deeper into hers. He fell into her regard, lulled by the craft of her fingers. They unfastened her buttons with rapturous indolence, allowing each to fall away from its closure in a way that provoked his blood. She bared herself inch by inch; her bosoms were unbound by the pink corset, spilling out on a rising perfumed tide. He touched the space between her collarbones, now lifting and falling with her breath, and drew a line down to the tender place where her breasts nuzzled together. He followed it with his nose, hands cradling her flesh as he inhaled the scent of her unfettered skin, feverish and new to his brain: seaweed ripped down the middle, heated salt, living fish and mangled roses. It doubled him over, crippling him with desire.

"Stripe me," she whispered.

Lord Beckett groped for the jamb. His fingers ran along its length, slipping beneath the knob. With a savage twist he locked the door.

"Assume the position," he said.

Stella walked to the foot of his bed. She stood on tiptoe and withdrew the lengths of rope, still hidden in the deep blue folds of the velvet draperies. She reached up and wrapped the hemp around her hands, clutching it with tight pale fingers. He prowled up behind her, allowing the leather tails to unfurl toward the floor. His fingers and the leather-wrapped handle were well acquainted with each other. He put a hand on her nape, then let it skim down over her back, savoring the way her spine flexed, the gooseflesh that prickled in response to his touch. He gathered up a fistful of hair and shook her head, feeling it flop around. He shook it harder and listened to her hiss of breath, its escalation at the pain in her scalp. He let go of her hair and took a giant step backward, delivering a well-timed crack across her shoulder blades. Stella gasped and swung forward on the ropes. She balanced on her toes, withdrawing her reddening skin.

He smirked. With an elegant turn of the wrist he snapped the flogger, lashing the skin over her spine with just the tips of the leathers. Her voice impaled itself on her breath, splitting open somewhere between a cry and a whimper. The muscles in her arms tightened. The skin there bloomed into a raw rose. He cocked his arm back and across her lower back. She cried out on impact. She flirted on the verge of hyperventilation. He flung it backhand, raising a welt that crossed the first. She hung her head and groaned, low and breathless. Her primitive tone brought the hackles up on the back of his neck. He lashed her across the ribs. Stella's body convulsed. A shiver rolled through him, igniting fierce crawling heat that stung in his groin and twisted there like nettles. He let out a grunt, baring his teeth, and struck her with all his strength. Her skin cracked. It puffed into a long pink wheal, oozing tiny droplets of blood. She screamed.

Lord Beckett moved closer to her, his forehead glittering with sweat and his breath torn into shreds. He brushed a delicate thumb along her back, smearing the beads of blood into her pale skin. Stella flinched away from him and whimpered, shoulders trembling as though she struggled to hold down her sobbing. He tangled one hand in her hair and nuzzled her temple. Her breath whistled through her nose. His fingers found tears when they touched her face. He wiped with his thumb, smearing blood across her cheekbone. Her composure broke. She wept, rending the air with her hiccupped breaths, stirring it with her silken whimpers. He lifted up her skirts, panting as he gathered them in the crook of his forearm. His fingers pushed between her legs. She squirmed away and with his body he shoved her into the footboard. Stella sucked in a deep breath, half-bent over the wood. His palm met hot smooth skin, soaked and slippery. Her plump thighs engulfed his hand past the wrist. He felt his fingers sucked with muscular twitching insistence into the wettest, slickest cunt they had ever encountered.

"Fuck," he rasped.

He plunged in two fingers to the knuckle. She arched her back and fell against him, her head rolling on his shoulder. He added a third finger. Her mouth softened and she groaned, her hot flesh squeezing him. He stroked his fingers, in and out, in and out. Stella let go of the rope and reached around, winding a shaking arm around his neck. Her hips rolled in time to his thrusts. He encircled her waist with his other arm, filling his palm with the tangled hair of her cunt. His fingertips sought her clit, throbbing like a tiny stone. She cried out, startled when he touched it. She pushed up on the balls of her feet, straining to increase the friction. He rubbed around it in circles, feeling her posture break down, the pleasure shaking her bones and ramping up her breath. She gulped in air, lunging her hips into his hand, her arm pulling on his neck and voice ascending to a whiny, reedy, supplicant tone:

"Oh, Lord," she breathed. "Lord…Lord."

"Cutler," he murmured.

"Cuh-hut…lerrrrrr!"

She came so hard it strangled the breath out of her. He pushed her quaking, tumultuous body down on the bed, and before the spasms could taper off he was holding her down by the shoulders, cock buried to the hilt. She groaned, the sound muffled by the blankets. The stout old bed creaked. He rode her strong and sure. It didn't take long for his will to break; he came with his fingers digging into her upper arms, his teeth bared and his throat locked down on a long, drawn-out grunt.

Cutler flopped over onto his back, legs hooked over the footboard, and put one arm over his eyes. He listened as her breath grew smooth and calm. His chest rose and fell, struggling to regain its breath. After a long moment had passed, Stella pushed herself up into a sitting position. He felt the mattress shift. He moved his forearm, peeking at her as she crossed the room and started to get dressed. The stripes on her back glowed red in the lantern light.

"Your money…"

"I know."

It sat on its habitual table beside the door, a small leather bag filled with coins. Stella didn't bother to button up her bodice. She held it closed and made for the door, her hair a tangled mess, her face streaked with blood and tears. She wouldn't look at the bed. She looked small and lost, an unhinged ghost. She winced as she unlocked the door. He started to say something but she slipped out into the hallway.

Cutler sat up and rubbed his face. The door clicked shut.

The money was still there.


	17. Sixteen

Fresh sunlight pierced the morning air. Stella passed Mr. Mercer in the hallway. The words fell from her lips, heavy and flowing, tugged into the range of his hearing by his displacement of air:

"I know it was you."

Thunder muttered somewhere over the horizon. Mercer continued on, stride slicing through the stirring of the house. He looked ahead. In his eyes, she was no more than a piece of furniture; she was not really there.

Stella watched him go. In her eyes, it was answer enough.


	18. Seventeen

"Do have a taste, Admiral. I think you will find it…most unusual."

Norrington's eyes touched the tray, ornate silver and lined with lace, balanced with a pair of teacups. His regard then fell upon Beckett, sitting in a chair with all the regal composure of a cat claiming its place before the hearth. A smirk curved the small man's lips. He watched Norrington, everything about his attention sharp, cloaked as it was in soft-spoken intent and the seduction of food; James felt constrained, the severe cut of his uniform demanding upright posture and reserve. He was tired to the bone. He would've given his commission at that moment for sleep, sacrificed a month's pay for fifteen minutes of indolence. A flash of hatred laced through him. How he envied Beckett's ease, the way he drew breath, his presence full of leisure and languid expectation. Norrington picked up the teacup. He looked inside it. The liquid within was too opaque to be tea, foamy and rust colored and thick, as though tinged with blood and dirt. He took a sip.

"Tell me, Admiral. Does it bring back memories?"

The flavor burst across his tongue, taking him by sweet surprise. Dark and sweet, tinged with coconut milk and cinnamon and vanilla, sweetened with honey distilled from sun-drenched flowers—there was no way to describe chocolate, it eluded words. It was mysterious, the elixir of strange gods. It coated his throat, teasing forth recollections of his youth as it settled into his stomach. It had been many years since he thought of New Spain. He placed the cup on the tray.

"Drinking chocolate," he said, voice even. "Delicacy of New Spain. It was introduced to the Old World by Cortés in the sixteenth century, and has since been rather barbarously rendered into cream-filled French fancies. It surprises me, Lord, that you would cultivate a taste for such things."

"It is not my taste, but yours," said Beckett. "Did you develop it as a child, Admiral? Or more properly, I suppose, as a young man?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I think you do."

Norrington sat back in the chair. His eyes followed the movements of a red-haired servant girl as she opened the door, carrying in a covered tray. She placed it on the small table and lifted the cover, revealing an artful arrangement of fruits: cubes of bright orange mango, slices of ruby papaya, chunks of gleaming white coconut, soft bananas, split figs, golden pineapple. The pieces had been sprinkled with sugar and sparkled in the afternoon sun. Beckett used a tiny silver fork to transfer a slice of pineapple onto a tiny gold-edged plate. He helped himself to mango as well, and a sliver of coconut.

"Cakes would be far too heavy. It would overwhelm the palate. Don't you agree?"

Norrington took in the array of fruit. He looked up at the servant girl, who caught his eyes and blushed scarlet before turning away. Her skin was obscured with freckles and a purple scar twisted through her upper mouth. James watched her narrow back as she hurried out of the room, selecting papaya slices for himself. He looked back at Beckett. He sipped more of his chocolate, unable to resist the temptation of it. He followed with a nibble of the papaya, mingling the fresh sweetness of the fruit with the dark sensuality of the chocolate. Fewer epicurean experiences were so sublime; all that was missing were the chilies, an array of them, bright reds and yellows and jeweled greens, varying sizes and piquant flavors. Unwelcome longing for the past washed over him.

"What exactly, Lord, is this about?"

Beckett smiled his lazy smile, and he retrieved a leather folder stuffed full of parchment. As he unwound the ties, the leather falling open into his hands, James looked at the papers and knew what they must be. He felt his heart sink. With a flick of the wrist, Beckett shook out one of them, and began to read from lines of close-packed script:

"I have record here of one Frederick James Norrington the third, a young man of fourteen years serving upon the merchant vessel Doña Marina. The venerable Doña Marina, captained by one able-handed Francisco de Salvo Barbossa, served the shipping routes between Cuba and Campeche. Furthermore, I make note of the fact that the signature present upon your resignation from the Royal Navy reads 'Commodore James F. Norrington'." Beckett nibbled a tidbit of pineapple. "It does seem all a bit of a coincidence, don't you think?"

James sighed.

"What is the likelihood that there should be two men employed upon the seas, men of the same age and origins, build and stature, similar in all aspects except in the matter of their names, which are reversed?" Beckett sipped his chocolate. He did so sparingly, as though the rich taste was an offense to his tongue. "Have you ever met this twin of yours?"

"Spare me the rhetoric," said James. "And tell me what it is that you want."

"Where is your respect?"

"I fear I tucked it away in a bag somewhere," he snapped. "Along with Davy Jones's heart."

Beckett chuckled. "Do you miss New Spain?"

"Every moment of every day," said Norrington.

Beckett blinked and leaned back, surprised by such a forthright response.

"Yes," said James. "I served aboard the Doña Marina for six years of my life, age fourteen until age twenty, at which time my mother used the experience I'd gained plus letters of reference from her brother, a retired Admiral, to secure a commission for me in His Majesty's Royal Navy."

"Why the transposition of names?"

"A measure of anonymity. Not that it did me much good."

"Was it really so shameful to be your father's son?"

One word, fashioned of steel: "Indeed."

"Very well, then, moving on," said Beckett, touching the corners of his mouth with a dainty linen napkin. "I should like to know about New Spain."

James cradled his cup in one hand. He drank from it and licked the foam from his upper lip. He drank again, taking a mouthful of the chocolate, shameless in his enjoyment of it, closing his eyes as it flowed over his tongue. Such a welcome indulgence. His stomach balked a little, unaccustomed to the richness. He ate a slice of pineapple with his fingers.

"Read a book," he said.

"But experience is much richer, much bolder, than some old man's words," said Beckett. "I imagine you could tell me things left out of books."

"I imagine that I could," said Norrington. "But why would I?"

"Because I wish it."

"Very well." Norrington heaved a sigh. "What would you like to know?"

"What would you care to tell me?"

"I cannot begin to fathom what details would catch your fancy. Is it the food you wish to know about, or the women? With most men it is one or the other."

"Tell me about the gold."

James snorted. "Cursed Aztec gold. I would've thought it a fairy story, but it would seem I'd be wrong. I can't bring to mind anything you don't already know. They were a fearsome and barbarous people, the Aztecs. Partial to human sacrifice."

"Did they eat the flesh?"

James chuckled. "On occasion."

"Why do you laugh?"

"It is the food or the women."

Beckett pushed away his plate, still filled with half-eaten slices of fruit. He looked at his cup of chocolate but did not touch it. He folded the napkin over his hands and draped it across the plate. "Tell me about the women, then."

James shrugged. "Beautiful. They are all beautiful."

"Admiral, are you jesting with me?"

"Is that not what you want to hear? That they are all beautiful?"

Beckett released a sharp breath. "I'm losing patience."

"Then ask what you want to ask. Going about in circles is tiresome. I imagine your servant girl is tired of hovering, waiting for you to finish your chocolate."

Flora looked up, startled and abashed at being drawn into the conversation. She refilled Norrington's cup from a small trembling earthenware jug and fled the room.

Beckett got up and retrieved a small box from his desk. He set it next to James's cup, lifting away the lid with both hands. Inside was a stone knife. Its blade was flaked white stone, its handle set in a simple design of inlaid turquoise and bloodstones. A solitary glimmering green feather curled out of the handle. "Have you seen a knife like this before?"

Norrington picked it up in ginger fingers. "Where did you get this?"

"At market," said Beckett. "A trinket, sold as a curiosity from New Spain. It looks cheap, to tell you the truth."

"Was it sold to you as an antiquity, then?"

"No," said Beckett.

"Yes, I've seen a knife like this before."

"What is it?"

"It's a knife, Lord Beckett."

"I'm aware of that. I'm enquiring as to its significance. It seems primitive. Like something the natives would use."

"That it is," said James. "It's a rather shoddy copy of a sacrificial knife. Barbarian priests used these to cut out the hearts of their sacrifices. The hearts were then offered to the gods, usually through a hold carved in the image's mouth, or in a special bowl held by a reclining statue."

"Indeed?"

"Yes."

"Do you know the language of the land?"

"Beg pardon?"

Beckett tossed him a piece of parchment. "Do you know these words?"

Norrington picked it up. His eyes scanned the neat cursive: _Ch'en. Coyolxauhqui._ He looked puzzled. "No."

Exasperated, Beckett snatched the paper out of his hand. He picked up the wooden box and held it out. Norrington replaced the knife. Beckett snapped the lid in place. "That will be all, Admiral Norrington."

"Lord?"

"That will be all."

Beckett made a gesture. Mercer appeared and presented Norrington with his hat. James pushed back his chair and stood up, fitting it on over his wig. He held his heels together and bowed his head.

"My thanks for the chocolate, Lord Beckett," he said. "A most unexpected pleasure."

"Mr. Mercer, please escort the Admiral to the front door."

"Yes, Lord."

Mercer did as bid. Flora watched them both from a shadowy corner of the room, the jug balanced in the palm of her hand.


	19. Eighteen

"Lord Beckett does not care for it much. Here, do you want some more?"

Stella looked into the cup of chocolate. The flavor of it was overwhelming; she imbibed in tiny sips, letting the flavor settle into the corner of her consciousness. The last of the twilight leached out of the sky. Stars burst out of the darkness. They sat on the floor, the platter of fruit between them. The earthenware jug sat off to one side. Flies circled the plate, landing in the juice. Flora waved the insects away. She plucked chunks of mango off the plate with her fingers and stuffed them into her mouth. Stella nibbled on a rind of coconut. Her eyes traveled from the platter of fruit to the little cups of chocolate, then wandered back again. The abundance was unsettling.

"Do you want more, Stella?"

"No. No, thank you. It's too rich for me."

"Suit yourself. I've not had chocolate before." Flora shrugged. "It was kind of Lord Beckett to pass it on, I think, though it would've been tossed otherwise. Fruit such as this, especially with the sugar, is frightfully expensive."

"The fruit is good," said Stella.

"I quite like it," said Flora. "Though I like sweet things. And it's just as well, I've all the figure of a stuffed string. I've never spared a worry for my figure. Not on account of having too much of it, anyway. Admiral Norrington is quite handsome. I can't believe Elizabeth Swann rejected his suit!"

"She didn't love him, I suppose," said Stella.

"The rich don't marry for love." Flora snorted and folded slices of papaya. She took a messy bite. "The rich marry for money and position. I reckon everyone knows that."

"I imagine you're right," said Stella.

"Even so, it's a smart match. And he's so handsome, and quite charming to boot. Is it true that she's run off and turned pirate?"

"I have no idea," said Stella.

"It makes not a whit of sense." Flora drank down her chocolate and belched, wiping her mouth with the back of a bony wrist. "I suppose it doesn't have to."

Stella looked out through the open door at the back of Beckett House, mesmerized by the flicker of candlelight in the windows.

* * *

"My lord, it troubles me."

"And what is that?"

"You locked the door."

Cutler looked over his shoulder. "What of it?"

"I can't very well respond to threats on your person if you lock your doors."

"It's no concern of yours."

Mercer felt a chasm open in his guts. "But, Lord—"

"That will be all."

The clerk cleared his throat. He adjusted his cravat.

"I said that will be all, Mr. Mercer."

* * *

James Norrington sat alone at a shadowy table, pushed far back out of the roar and bustle of the tavern's camaraderie. It was a rough seafront place, favored by merchant seamen and common laborers. The plank floor was splintered and the tables rough-hewn, the booze cheap and watered down. He didn't care. He slouched over a tankard of rum, fingers curled around the handle. At the end of a long bureaucratic day it was a fine place to disappear.

"Admiral, sir!"

The breathy feminine voice startled him. He looked up.

"Hello, Admiral Norrington." Beckett's redheaded servant girl stood there with a yellow hibiscus clasped in her hand. She was flushed and mussed, dressed in a old pink and brown calico frock that did nothing for her skin. She smiled at him and her face opened up, revealing a slow and unassuming light, something secret and warm like a hooded flame. She placed the flower on the table. She bowed her head and lowered herself into a deep curtsy. "Thank you for being so nice to me."

To say he was astounded would be an understatement.


	20. Nineteen

Stella began to dream of him. This sweet torment crept out of nowhere and pounced on her as she slept, making a prison of her twisted sheets and wrenching her to wakefulness on the receding tide of orgasm. She often rose before Flora, when the sky was still dark and the morning air chilled by the sea, and pulled on her uniform in a haze. She ate a cold breakfast and went about her duties, bearing her mounting weight of broken rest. One particular morning stood out, gleaming gold with sunlight and heavy with the blown-in scent of fish.

She moved through the downstairs hallway. Her arms were full of roses cut from another's garden, blowsy pink blossoms purchased by Lord Beckett for the adornment of his sitting room. His Lordship was in the dining room. He took breakfast with a pair of his captains, reviewing facts and figures in a velvet voice. His tones pierced her mind, shards that slipped beneath her skin and remained there, burning and shrieking and eluding all attempts to withdraw them. She slowed in the hall. Her feet dragged through honey, ears drowning in distilled seduction. She loitered near the door.

She dared a peek and caught a glimpse of his pale neck, garnished with a flopping black bow. The blood rushed to her face. Her fingers thirsted for his nape and longed to inscribe the memory of his of silken hairs upon their tips, to map the fine trail leading to his secret skin. She wanted to drop the roses at his feet. She wanted to climb up into his lap like a kitten or a child, to burrow her way through layers of brocade. She wanted to despoil his flesh, to lock the door between her desire and the world. She wanted a letter from him. She was loose-jointed with need. She craved his invitation.

He glanced into the hallway. Stella continued on, taking the roses into the sitting room, where she arranged them in a vase and placed the vase in front of an open window. She stole one of the roses. She hid it beneath her apron and went back to her tiny room. She ripped the petals off the bloom and leaned in a slanting bar of sunlight and rubbed them against her throbbing clit, bruising pink flesh with pink flesh, raking herself with the thorny stem. The shallow red lines made a poor substitute but it was enough to make her come, jaw tight and knees quivering.


	21. Twenty

Lord Beckett stood on his balcony, face held into the restless wind. The moon was near to completion, her gleaming bosom heavy with light. Below him lay the docks with their spreading quicksilver petticoats of sea. The sacrificial knife turned within his nimble fingers.

It was terrain his fingertips knew well. There were fifty-two inlaid stones in the handle. He counted them sometimes with his thumbnail, seated at his desk with parchment and paper spread before him, tea cooling in its delicate gold-rimmed vessel, eyes unfocused and directed toward the vistas that lay beyond his walls. They were cheap bloodstones and low-grade alabaster and what the indigenous peoples of New Spain called jadestones. Serpentine, pretty green pebbles judged worthless by a conquering nation, valued above all other stones and held in secret reverence by the red-skinned people who still lived in the thick jungles and the lofty peaks of the misty mountains and as shadows within Spanish cities, the embodied clinging miasma of imperialism and all its unpleasant truths. Most of the handle was white. The blade was flaked of translucent chalcedony, a stone that departed from native tradition in that it was not obsidian, it did not sparkle by firelight like a star-flecked night.

It was white. According to the barbarous, convoluted religion that birthed it, white was the color of death.

_Very clever, this knife. A sacred joke._ Cutler held it up to the light of the moon, admiring it. _A wish, perhaps, upon those who would handle it, those who would profit from the demise of its mother._

The wind blew at his hair. The black kitty brushed up against his ankles and then trotted to his chair, where she leapt onto the velvet seat. She groomed one shoulder.

He looked out across the water and was restless in his mind.


	22. Twenty-One

Stella waited until it was past midnight. She wrapped herself in her ratty cloak and slipped out into the waiting darkness, silent and fleeting as a shadow driven by candlelight.

She chose a small out-of-the-way wharf, its warped boards silvered in moonlight. Dinghies and small fishing vessels creaked at their moorings. This place was shorter than the others, and rougher; it was the sort of port only local men would use because it was both cheap and unsightly. She stepped on the wood. She smelled the sea, strong as bitter tears. The water lapped and sucked at the pilings. It murmured gilded promises and whispered silken threats. She thought of all men who had been called to the sea, as she did every time she set foot on a man's dock; she was a cruel mistress, demanding her fidelity in rotten teeth and cracked skin, exacting the price of her love in time and blood and the watery grave. She would never feel the pull, the tidal stirrings in her flesh. She could not. The sea was her mother, not her lover. It was her home.

Stella reached the end of the dock and she knelt down, sitting back on her heels. She pulled up one of her sleeves. With a deep breath she extracted a small, sharp knife from the pocket of her cloak. She stretched one forearm out over the shifting, glimmering water. Her other hand trembled as she sliced the skin. It was a shallow cut drawn across the base of her thumb. Blood welled in a line of fat drops. They looked black in the moonlight, seed pearls fished out of the depths of hell. One of them broke loose and hit the water. It was followed by another. She wrapped her throbbing hand in a bit of sleeve and tucked her hair behind her ears, wounded thumb cradled in her lap. She sat cross-legged. The wind riffled across her skin. She pulled her cloak tight and waited.

The waters parted with a sigh. The sound moved through Stella and she crawled to the splintering edge of the dock, her hair hanging down over her shoulders. A sleek head bobbed to the surface. Beneath the blurry moon-dappled sea a long gray dolphin's tail undulated. Stella reached out. Webbed fingers breached the distance and interlaced with hers. At the touch Stella broke down, her jaw trembling and her face breaking. Her breath drowned in a whimper of pain. The firm grip and slick sensation of cool skin overwhelmed her heart. All of her confusion and tangled lust welled to the surface, sweeping words away on a flood of emotion. The tears dripped off her face, rejoining the sea.

"Mama," she sobbed. "Oh, mama. I don't want to come back."

"You must. If you abandon the sea you will grow sick and die."

"I-I can't…I don't…I…"

"It is your first time." The words held infinite gentleness. "It's always hard after your first time."

"But…I can't feel like this anymore!"

"Feel?"

"The…desire." Stella struggled with the words. "The want. It's like food or drink or sleep. I think of him all the time. I fear I shall go mad with it."

"Have you caught?"

"I don't know."

"You would know. You feel the change."

"Then…no."

"Once you've caught you must leave." She squeezed her daughter's hands. "You know this."

"But I don't want to! I want to stay!"

"The baby must be born in the water."

"But…"

"It must be born in the water or it will die. So will you."

"But it's so hard!"

"Yes. It is."

"Did you love my father?"

She released her daughter's hands. "It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

"I thought I did. He gave me you. That's the only thing that matters."

"What if I told him?"

"No! It would only bring you suffering, and heartbreak, and…"

Stella put her face in her hands and wept.

"It hurts to hear you cry so." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Like a spear through the heart."

Stella stumbled to her feet. She whirled around and ran for the land, her feet pounding on the old wood. She let out a high-pitched wail that followed her into the streets of Port Royal like a streamer made of razors.


	23. Twenty-Two

The girl was persistent. She had the gift of appearing at whatever tavern he had chosen to drown the night away and the temerity to take a seat across his table, just as if she belonged there. And perhaps she did; Flora McHenry moved with ease through a world of men, unaffected by rough language or the pungency of dirty bodies, slipping through revelry like a copper cat between ungainly ankles. She occupied her wooden chair and leaned her elbows on the table, chattering about all manner of things, strewing the noisy silence between them with gossip, stories of her past, and questions about his work, his family, his homeland. She was forward, too. It was disconcerting to be so gently hunted, cornered with wiles and soothed with bright smiles, harpooned in place with sharpened interest and sweet words. Though disconcerted by such behavior in a woman, Norrington found himself drawn to it. Some part of him awoke in the light of her attention and yearned for it, like an empty belly sobbing at the smell of food. The wall sconces glimmered in her red hair.

"Do ye have a room, then?"

Norrington looked at her. They sat in a corner table and the area behind her was a cacophony of feet and cheering men, all eyes turned to a pair of girls in bright silky costume dancing on a tiny wooden stage. It was a dance of the mysterious East, the strange cadence of the little men in their tasseled hats thumped through the wooden walls and quickened the crowd like a heartbeat. Upon the stage, lit with smoky lamps, their hips carved the dim air in an endless quivering jingle. Gauzy veils covered their heads and their eyes were rendered both mysterious and imperious by the liberal use of kohl; their grace of movement demanded the attention of the divine. Pearls danced in their navels. Such undulations of mesmerizing bare skin stirred the restlessness of the men, bringing it to a rolling boil. Someone tripped and crashed into a wall of men, knocking some over, spilling beer everywhere. Voices rose in ugly threat. One broke a chair over another's head and a brawl ensued with the viciousness of a sudden thunderstorm.

"What?"

"Do ye have a room. Upstairs?"

Norrington's spine stiffened. "Though somewhat derogated by being in Beckett's employ, I still consider myself a man of honor, and I apologize if you in any way misread my intentions…"

"Don't snap your straps, Admiral. Just for conversation, like. Besides," she giggled, "I'm in Beckett's employ too?"

"My sincerest apologies," Norrington stammered, blushing crimson. "Present company excluded. I meant no offense to your character. Please forgive me."

"None taken. Do you? Have a room, that is."

"I do not. I see it is your wish I procure one."

"Not at all, I was merely enquiring. Such a man as yourself can surely afford one, and the respite could be welcome after a night spent a-drinking, and to have rest on the premises spares the shame of staggering home so inebriated you cannot tie your own shoes."

"Indeed. Would you like me to engage a room?"

"Only if it suits your fancy, Admiral."

"This noise is giving me a headache," he said.

James flagged down a barmaid, and he waved with his fingers that she should bend down. She did, and James spoke directly into her ear. The plump old sow nodded, palming the packet of folded notes he passed to her, slipping them deep into the pocket of her apron. She disappeared off into the seething crowd. Moments later she returned and placed a single key on the scarred table top.

"Very well, Miss McHenry," he called over the noise. "Follow me. Privacy and quiet awaits."

The room was upstairs and on the corner, with a pair of windows overlooking the alleys below. Flora walked ahead of him, and she opened the shutters to the night air. In this part of town the air stank, but a malodorous breeze was better than none at all. The heat of confined bodies and candle flames rose up through the floorboards below. Ambient noise drifted in through the windows, but the crash and roar of the tavern was muted by the walls into something distant and unformed. The exotic music of the dancers was stripped down to its percussive skeleton. Flora put her hand on the wood. She felt the sound trapped inside, like an excited pulse.

James walked into the tiny room and closed the door. There was small table jammed in the corner, a single chair pulled up to it. The bed was narrow and made up with yellowed sheets and a threadbare woolen blanket. He removed his coat and hung it on a peg sticking out of the door.

"This is unseemly," he said.

Flora turned around. "And yet you are here."

His mouth twisted in a wry smile. "That I am. I'll offer the lady my only chair."

Flora grinned and dipped in a little curtsy and pulled it out with a flourish. She sat down and crossed her legs beneath her skirts. "Thank you."

"You're quite welcome."

"I am not drunk enough for this."

Flora got up out of the chair and walked to where he perched on the edge of the bed, knees clasped together and hands folded upon his long thighs. He looked up at her with something abashed alighting upon his face, a tremble of the eyelashes that made him seem for a fleeting second like a boy. Flora smiled at him, grabbing hold of her skirts and hoisting them up as she climbed into his lap. She put her arms around his neck and rested them there.

"There you are, love," she said. "Does this make it any easier?"

The words slipped over James like water. He was immersed in the sensation of his hands upon her narrow arms. He drew them down toward her knobby elbows and trailed his fingers across her graceful forearms, his touch agile and ephemeral, tracing light circles around her knuckles. His expression was intent. The focus of it scattered goosebumps across her skin and puckered her nipples into bullets. She put a hand on the back of his neck and watched his face as his hands found her breasts, small and firm inside the bodice of her dress. His eyes roamed her freckled décolletage, touched upon the winglike shadows cast by her prominent collarbones. Her nipples asserted themselves through the worn thin cotton. He touched them with his thumbs. She closed her eyes and savored the thrill, the heat it kindled in her loins. James held her breasts and leaned forward, brushing a soft kiss in the space between her collarbones. He inhaled the pure scent of her.

_In her build she is so like Elizabeth._

He closed his eyes for a moment. Flora unbuttoned her bodice and shrugged out of it and unlaced her corset, loosening the stringent material enough to wriggle out of it. The twisting and turning of her body forced his eyes open, and he watched as she divested herself of her chemise and sat straight upon his lap, bare from the waist up, her skin like cream in the lantern light, cream generously sprinkled with cinnamon. Her lips curved in a soft smile as he covered her breasts with his hands, and she listened to his breath alter at their softness, at her stiff pink nipples burrowing into his palms. He pressed his open mouth to her neck and exhaled, the sound ragged and shaky. He kissed her skin, eyes closed as he mapped her terrain with soft moist lips. He kneaded her breasts. She covered his restless hands with her own and succumbed to his attentions, her long red hair falling around his shoulders.

He put a hand on the back of her neck and pulled her mouth into his. She kissed him back with undisguised ardor, her long thin fingers working at his cravat. She loosened the knot, unraveling it while she distracted him with her tongue, and pulled it away from his pale neck. James shrugged out of his shirt. He parted their lips long enough to peel it off and drop it to the floor. He pulled her bare torso close, craving the feel of her breasts against his chest. He held the back of her head and kissed her. She smiled against his lips, giggling a little.

"I take it this is a yes, then."

"Yes." He lowered his face, lifting one of her breasts to his mouth. "Yes."

Flora ran her fingers through his hair. She nuzzled the crown of his head. "Is that nice?"

He moaned and sucked on her nipple.

"That's good," she whispered. "Do loosen your breeches, Admiral. I think it's time."

James pulled back and looked at her, searching her eyes. His breath was quick and steady, like a man accustomed to vigorous activity. "Are you ready?"

Flora nodded and smiled and it was tremulous. "Yes."

His brows furrowed. He pushed aside her skirts, worming one hand up beneath them. He maintained eye contact as he slid his palm along the outside of her thigh, cupped one buttock, then slipped his fingers lower. Flora caught her breath. He touched her clit and she moaned a little.

"True, you are wet enough," he continued. "But is that a true measure of your desire?"

Flora held onto his shoulders. She leaned her forehead against his.

"The body will respond with all manner of lubriciousness." His breath came faster. "It is flesh, and flesh has no heart. Will you open to me?"

"Y-Yes…please!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

His fingers abandoned her clit and sought the entrance of her cunt, and she sighed and spasmed and tightened her hands on his shoulders as they slid inside. He put his face in her neck and groaned at the ease of it, at the hospitality clenched in her hot silken walls.

"Please do it, Admiral. Put your prick in me."

"We can dispense…at this time…with the formality," he panted, unbuttoning his fly. He took hold of her waist and lifted her, impaling her with slow and delicious deliberation. "Just James will do."

Flora cried out and clutched onto him. He kissed all over her neck, running his hands up and down her back, allowing her time to adjust to his presence. She clasped him with her thighs. He sat still and became very aware of the wild beat of his heart and the smell of her sweat, the rising sweetness of her cunt. He put his hands under her skirts and caressed her hips. He held onto her buttocks.

"You feel lovely," he whispered.

She moved up and down on his lap. "So do you."

There was nothing but the sounds of their breath, the muffled beat of the music downstairs, and the faint creak of the spindle bed. He squeezed her flexing hips, running his fingers along the sides of her thighs. He grew close and started to whimper.

"Are you with me?"

"Huh?"

Flora concentrated on what she was doing. James opened his eyes and took her in. Sweat gleamed on her white breasts, her nipples swinging in counterpoint to her body's rhythm. Her brow was furrowed, her mouth parted enough to show her long white teeth. He traced his thumb over the purple scar that twisted through her upper lip. Flora whimpered at the sensation and kissed it.

"Are you with me?" she murmured.

"Yes!"

"Don't think about her." Her eyelids lifted to half-mast. "Don't think about Elizabeth."

The revelation that he wasn't burst through him with all the force of a lightning bolt.

"You aren't," she sighed. "Good."

He took her hips and pulled her down on him, lips pulling back from his teeth with the effort. He moved his hips against hers and struggled to reach completion. Her body bucked against his, thighs tightening, and she grabbed onto his shoulders and her mouth softened around the edges, breath climbing a scale of notes.

"Oh James," she whimpered.

He felt her let go and was helpless to stop himself from following. He held onto her and felt her shudder around him, muffling his cries in her bony shoulder. It was finished. Flora climbed off him and went to the chair, sitting in it with her legs folded up beneath her. She didn't bother to put her clothes back on. She watched him move around the small room, pacing it like a restless tomcat as he picked up his shirt and made no move to put it back on. He draped the cravat around his neck and let it hang there. He looked at the shirt in his hand. He made a noise of disgust and flung it against the wall. He ran his hands through his hair and made handfuls of it and pulled, then fetched a deep sigh. He let go and rubbed his face. He turned halfway and looked at Flora, sitting in the wooden chair and watching him, her hair sticking to her breasts and her hands draped in her lap.

"Shall we go to bed?"

"I…"

"Come." She motioned him forward. "Come."

He crossed the room and felt his eyes burn, and by the time he was on his knees and clutching onto her he was sobbing into the soft skin between her breasts. She stroked his hair. He put his hands on her breasts, held onto them like they were the difference between drowning and living. She stroked the backs of his hands, then put her arms around him and held him close, knees apart and rocking him side to side.

"Come on, love," she said. "Let's get you into bed."

He allowed her to undress him down to his skin, and she led him to the bed and peeled back the covers and persuaded him to sit on the mattress. She slipped his legs one at a time, pulling the old threadbare sheet up around his waist. She stripped off her skirts and petticoats and slid into the bed with him, lifting herself up on one elbow to turn and blow out the candle flame. In the dark she held him while he cried, and when he was done crying and down to sniffling he kissed her with renewed fervor, and then she took him into her body again and received all of his anguish, all of his lust, all of his body's craving for closeness, and the second time he came it was like a cataclysm and he moaned her name over and over. He withdrew his spent prick and went down between her juicy thighs with his mouth and she screamed and pulled on his hair and the sound of her passion was lost in the roar of the never-ending party below.


	24. Twenty-Three

Stella gasped and shot bolt upright in her bed. Her eyes roamed the perfect darkness, seeking out some sort of disturbance in the room, a breach in her sense of security; there was nothing, only the bellows of her terrified breath and the instinctive knowledge that she was alone in the room. She threw off her covers and raced to the window. The smell of the wind drew her there, planting her palms on the sill as she leaned out into a velvet darkness embedded with the shrieking of birds and the industry of night insects. Her skin was soaked in sweat. Her muscles trembled. She sniffed and her heart clenched in swift, sudden dread. It smothered her in a weight of ice, paralyzing her limbs. She started to panic. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she glanced at Flora's bed. It was rumpled and unmade, the white sheets sculpted around the outline of their missing mistress.

Stella threw on her cloak and ran for the house.


	25. Twenty-Four

_Look at that little bitch. Just as bold as brass._

Mercer watched from behind a crack in the door, quiet as a mouse and one with the darkness, measuring her stealth with his eyes. She came to Cutler's door, and looked up and down the shadowed hall before putting both hands on the knob. She started to turn and he expanded into the hallway's breath and his blade kissed her throat, glancing across it like a lover's caress, a sinister invitation passed in the embrace of the night. The startle reaction sent a thrill down to his toes; he put his mouth against her cheek and when he smiled she could feel his bared teeth.

"I'm going to enjoy killing you," he whispered.

Stella gasped at the chill of the blade and bucked away from him as the adrenaline poured in, thrumming her pulse against the steel. He savored the futility of her heart, the evidence of her terror, his dominion over her small plump body. He tightened the blade against her throat and took hold of her hair, moving her head and making her throat arch into his intrusion. As though she was begging for it. He smiled and inhaled the scent of her hair while envisioning the fine thin spray of her arterial blood. The hot red scrawl of it across the clean white walls. A fine notion, really.

"Tell me how much you want to die," he whispered.

She shrieked and wrenched her spine and kicked like a savage thing; she clawed at his hair and ripped strands of it out; she lunged with her hips, struggling against his steadfast grip. Cutler's door opened. There was a dry click and Stella felt the iron leak out of Mercer's resolve. It happened with hesitation, as though some part of him held back and hedged its bets. She strove to lessen the contact of the blade against her skin. She closed her eyes and caught her breath, Lord Beckett's sleep-mulled voice a prickly whiskey-warm counterpoint to the frantic hammering of her heart.

"That is enough."

"Lord, she attempted without authorization…"

"I said, that is enough!"

"She's a threat!" Mercer hissed. "She's muddled your senses, you…"

Lord Beckett reversed the pistol in his hand and whacked him across the cheekbone with it.

"You will remove the blade from Miss West's throat at once," he snapped. "Or as God is my bloody witness your brains shall exit your head."

Mercer clenched his jaw. Blood trickled from a small cut in his cheek. The area beneath his eye turned pink and started to swell. The hand holding the knife trembled.

"Now! You will do it now!"

Mercer locked furious eyes with his boss.

Cutler leveled the pistol and pressed the barrel against his forehead. "I will kill you, you wretched cocksucker, and not spare a thought for it."

The knife came away from her throat. Stella ducked under his arm and ran past Cutler into his bedroom.


	26. Twenty-Five

Cutler slammed the door. He clicked the lock into place. He turned around. Stella cowered in the center of the room.

"Now, Stella. Do you want to tell me what this is about?"

"I-I…it…he…"

"He did his job, though with a touch more fervor than I would've liked. I didn't send for you tonight. I don't care for this flagrant disregard of the rules. In fact I am wont to muse on how I should punish you, but right now I'm simply tired. I'll ask you once: what do you want?"

"T-The…it…"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Huge drops of sweat stood out on her forehead. Lank hair clung to her glistening skin. She hugged herself and hunkered down on her haunches and started to rock, looking up at him through quivering eyelashes.

"No launch," she whispered.

"What?"

"No launch!"

"What is this nonsense?"

Her teeth chattered. "The _Endeavour_."

"We set sail in the morning, whether it is to your pleasure or not." He waved a dismissive hand. "If that is all, then there is no more to discuss. Now go back to bed."

"No!" she screamed. "No launch!"

He grabbed hold of her shoulders and hauled her to her feet, shaking her like a rag doll. "Why? Why not, you stupid insensate bitch?" She whimpered. "Make some fucking sense!"

"It's…w-w-wind." Her voice weakened, dwindled down to a child's.

"I'm ordering you to make…some…goddamned…sense!"

He backhanded her. Stella staggered to one side, feet crossing over one another, and she covered her face with her hands. She sobbed as her knees softened beneath her and delivered her body to the floor in a boneless heap. She did something then that sucked all the air out of his lungs: she pulled her knees under and formed herself into a tiny ball, wrapping her arms up around her head. Her could see her shivering. The pungent odor of her sweat stung his nostrils. He realized with sudden cold clarity that she was terrified beyond anything Mercer could've done; she was in a place his voice and his discipline could not reach. The sight of her infuriated him. He fought the urge to kick her, to beat the words out of her. He wanted to make bruises. What stilled his hand was the knowledge that it would do no good.

"Stella," he warned.

"Huracán," she whispered.

The blood drained out of his face. "What did you say?"

"H-Huracán." The word was barely audible.

He yanked her up off the floor. "How do you know that word?"

She stared into his face. Her eyes were unfocused.

"Answer me!" The leash on his control snapped. "Answer me! _Answer me_! How do you know that word? How…_how_? HOW? YOU LOOK AT ME!" Spittle rained down into her face. "LOOK AT ME, GODDAMN YOU! YOU WILL LOOK AT ME AND _ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION_, I WANT YOUR EYES ON _ME_! LOOK INTO MY EYES AND _TELL ME HOW YOU KNOW THAT WORD YOU STUPID, MUTE, DESPICABLE CUNT_!"

"Chich íik," she muttered, her voice low. Her arms hung at her sides and her hands trembled like a palsied old man's. Her head lolled back. Her eyes were closed. "It comes…sáamal, Huracán."

Goosebumps crawled over his skin. He felt dunked in ice. "What are you?"

Her eyes opened and she looked into his face. "Hurricane."

He let go of her.


	27. Twenty-Six

Stella remained on the floor. For a long moment the air rent itself in his breath, a slow struggle to rein himself in and give his attention to her, the way she crumpled there, as though her ability to move had been cut out like a cancer. How small and vulnerable she was. In all his years he'd never borne witness to such fear. It claimed her absolute and made a mockery of her flesh, twitching like a fish flung out of water. She was helpless over her breath. It came in a staccato pattern punctuated by the occasional soft gasp.

"Stella," he said.

Her hand unfolded from the protection of her body. Her arm shifted to one side, bending at the elbow. It slid against the wooden slats of the floor. The fingers crept, slow and dazed, mounted on a shaking wrist. Her fingertips brushed the toe of his boot.

"Stella." Though there was still anger in his voice he held it back, willing it to break apart like flotsam on a high sea. "I should like you stand up."

She ran a finger across the gleaming leather. Her hand closed around his ankle with surprising strength. She scuffled forward bare inches. Her body coiled into the fetal position and she put her soft cheek on the toe of his boot. He felt the heat of her skin seep through the leather, intruding upon the bones of his feet. Her fingers tightened like shackles. Her breath condensed in a tiny feather along the shiny surface. He looked down at her face. All focus within him narrowed into a point like a candle flame. Her breath came and went, came and went. He felt the rhythm of her warmth. He tilted his foot forward. The motion was slight. Her fingers flexed on his ankle and she turned her face and pressed her lips into his instep, delivering a soft kiss. His breath rushed out of his body at the contact. His skin prickled and his hands trembled and sparks flared and twisted in his loins, like something dangerous awakening from a long cold sleep.

"Again," he whispered.

She did, open-mouthed, allowing the pink tip of her tongue to flick against the cool leather. He groaned and felt the heat of his blood shift.

Stella brushed her face against the leather, running her cheeks along it. She caressed his foot with her hair. Her hands moved over themselves, climbing the shape of his calf, pulling her chest away from the floor. She kissed the leather like it was his bare skin and moved onto her knees, one sliding across the front of his hip. She buried her face in his thigh. She straddled the toe of his boot and lowered herself on it until the leather grazed her clit. She slid back and forth with delicate movements of her hips and clung onto him, whimpering hot breath into his breeches. He held onto the back of her head and pulled at her hair. He pried one of her hands off his thigh and curled it over the bulge in his crotch. Her breath quickened and she palmed his cock and she whimpered, biting into his leg, the motion of her hips dissolving into little convulsions. Cutler felt his knees weaken and gasped at the dizzying power of her quick climax. He heard the soft low smooch of her cunt against the leather. The sound went through him and flayed his rage open and pounded it smooth and grappled it into surrender.

He took hold of her armpits and hauled her to her feet. He pushed her into the nearest thing which turned out to be the front of his wardrobe and ripped the buttons off his fly in his haste to claim her. He lifted up her by handfuls of her thighs and rammed his bolt home, knocking the breath out of her lungs and rattling the hangers inside the wardrobe, holding her up even though her legs tightened around the small of his back and her arms held his neck in a vise grip and the material of her skirts was everywhere, bunched up between them, slamming into his belly with every thrust. He put his face in her neck. Fucking her sounded like a ship breaking itself apart on the rocks of a false harbor. It sounded like a foundering house and it felt like the immolation of heaven, like angels catching fire and plummeting to earth, like his heart succumbing to lightning. When he came he screamed.

Despite the trembling in his thighs, he carried her to his bed. He dropped her there and climbed over her and wrestled her free of her bodice. He lost himself in her round white sweat-slippery breasts and sucked on her large copper nipples until she moaned and arched and begged for the touch of his hand. He brought her off a second time with nimble fingers.

Outside the door Mercer sat on the floor with his back leaned into it and his knees drawn up and he grasped the handle of his knife in both hands, pressing the dull end into his forehead while he cried.


	28. Twenty-Seven

Day broke flawless and gentle gold across the sea. The water was flat, the sky blue and blameless as the shell of a robin's egg.

Lord Beckett stood at his downstairs veranda watching the sailors loaded up the Endeavour. They moved like beasts of burden held in line by the whip of their master's will, an endless unbroken circuit of men moving from the warehouses to the ship and then back again, all balanced and weighed down with crates and barrels. A young man presented him with a bill of lading, which he glanced over and then waved away to be signed at the change of the tide.

* * *

Stella was straightening out her bed when Flora came home, disheveled and backlit with the first rays of dawn. The two women looked at each other, but said nothing as each went about her morning's business.

* * *

It was old Mr. Stephens who first noticed the shift. It was still sunny, but a strange scrim of thin gray clouds whipped across the horizon. It bled out the light and granted it a strange lack of depth. He paused in his doings and leaned for a moment on his rake and took a deep breath of wind. The chickens clucked and scuffled around his feet.

"Gonna have a bit o' weather, I reckon."

* * *

By noontime the sky was blinding white. The sun blazed through the haze like a molten disk. The lowermost layer of clouds raced against the pale sky with a tattered restlessness Norrington did not like. A light steady rain swept in sideways across the water, like bridal veils caught and dragged by the wind. The water felt warm as blood upon his face. Unease brushed against his heart.

He caught the arm of a passing lieutenant. "Inform Lord Beckett that the launch is stayed until the next tide."

"Will do, Admiral."

* * *

When the rains started Stella abandoned her duties in the north wing. She left her basket of linens on the sideboard and took off her apron and ran down to the kitchen, curtains blowing and puddles of water forming on the wooden floors. She found Flora sweating over a stockpot.

"Go and find your man," she said.

"What?" Flora stopped stirring.

"Go and find your man. Then find a safe place and take cover."

"Whatever do you mean?" Her cheeks were pink. "Take cover? Why?"

"Hurricane," she said.

* * *

Lord Beckett stood in his bedroom. He watched with testy amusement as his cat ricocheted off his furniture. She clawed at the drapes, then leapt with oiled grace from surface to surface. She whipped a pair of figurines to the floor with her tail. The shattering sound spooked her and she skittered under the bed. She started to howl. The strangled musical quality of it wormed chill shards into his blood and made him feel uneasy, like a feather tickling the base of his brain.

"Norrington's stayed the launch until the next tide. This weather is making him uncomfortable."

"Mercer, come in here and help me catch this cat."

* * *

Lightning hurled itself across the distant sea. Thunder followed like a smattering of applause.

The rain plastered Norrington's clothes to his body and rinsed the powder out of his wig. It ran in white rivulets down his cheeks and splattered onto his dark coat. A greenish murk sprawled across the horizon. He discerned clouds building themselves into a distant wall, mounting in an advancing army of howling wind and devastating rain. It grew taller and taller. It piled up like boiling black water behind a dam.

"Lieutenant, finish what you are doing. I want every last one of these men to depart for home immediately."

"Admiral?"

"Are you questioning my orders?"

"Of course not, sir. What of the launch?"

"Delayed until further notice."

"Very well. What shall I tell Lord Beckett?"

Norrington's nostrils flared. "Hurricane."


	29. Twenty-Eight

The wind howled and the rain lashed. The wooden walls shuddered and creaked and threatened to crack apart beneath the strain, but the unwashed patrons crammed floor to beams in this particular establishment didn't care; they were sloppy drunk, every last one of them, and as far as this collection of disease-ridden rejects knew it was Armageddon come to the front doors. For many of them the end of days would've been a relief, could they have wallowed out of their drunkenness long enough to bear witness and take measure and feel the sweet balm of tendering out their debts in spirit and brimstone. Most of them had been dragging about the chains of purgatory far too long.

Mercer had no idea if the storm had properly struck. The wind shrieked like a woman, but that didn't mean anything. The tropics were in his blood and something whispered to him that this wailing of wind, this outriding battalion of banshees, didn't approach the full force of the storm. Most of it held back, still churning out there over the ocean. All the armies of weather were amassed and prepared for the real assault. There wouldn't be much left when the hurricane finished with Port Royal.

So he drank. He left the men alone and they left him alone. They caroused with one another while the rum tasted bitter in his throat and though he put it away with alarming efficiency the blurriness would not come; his rage burned through the alcohol like clean fuel within a lamp. He put down his mug and took out one of his knives and played with the keen edge. The men around him snored and roared and knocked one another's teeth out. The calluses on Mercer's thumbs were thick, accustomed to such treatment. He caressed the blade and thought of how nice it would be to kill someone. The pleasure of this thought tingled in his loins; such a blessing it would be to release someone's blood, to will the exsanguination of his gall and anguish and fulminating rage along with someone's life force. To paint the alleyways with it. He wanted to feel the spark go out and turn over the useless flesh to the carrion-eaters and feel himself sated, his strange hungers routed back into the deep caves of his soul. He desired it, though he lacked a target. Long ago he had learned to cultivate his nature, to parlay it into coin and protection and position in the underbelly of society. He made of himself a weapon. Weapons are used in service to the greater good, whether to some noble chapter of ideals or to someone's ruthlessness and greed. Any other sort of killing relegated him to the lower orders of existence, took him out of the class of men and cast him out into the company of wild things that stalked the night and turned on their own kind, things that lived on flesh and blood and could not be tamed by rules and freely indulged in cannibalism of the mind. Great scholars and philosophers and clergymen agreed upon the fates of such creatures: a lifetime of incarceration or dispatch granted at the end of the hangman's noose.

Mercer struggled to keep his place in the order of men, even if he did it by tooth and blade.

A gust of wind blasted into the side of the building. Shelves rattled and a pair of glasses tumbled to the floor and shattered like little bombs.

_Come, bitch. Scrub this place off the map._

After awhile a man approached him, slim and young and blond. His face was thin and his breath stank sweetly of rum and coconut and his hands trembled, a fine vibration that hadn't its origins in drink or malnutrition or fear of the storm. His eyes were long-lashed and circumspect and something in this young man's posture bespoke a softness, a will to yield. Sure enough the young man sat down and bought Mercer a tankard of rum that he didn't touch and once their overlapping layers of body heat accustomed to one another's company Mercer felt those slim fingers touch the outside of his knee, just once, the tentative approach of an animal. The young man fidgeted upon this breach of decorum, and his eyes danced away before dancing back, his skittish sense of caution dismantled by too much liquor and too many men in a small space and that touch of fear that makes everything burn just a little hotter.

It didn't matter where he went. These men always found him. They were always soft, as though born to luxury. They always made the opening move. Mercer would look into their eyes and see something of Cutler reflected there and though he loathed himself for it that would be enough. They wanted from him everything that Cutler would not take, and so he gave it. He would take these fragile things into a room somewhere and show them what it meant to break across the prow of his masculinity.

Mercer sought the attention of the barmaid. If there were no rooms to be had he would resort to the alley. Perhaps they'd both blow away.

'Twould be a blessing, really.


	30. Twenty-Nine

The frustration of immense storm-driven tides thrummed up through the cold stone floor.

By the guttering light of a single candle, James used a long steady finger to trace the wing-like shape of Flora's shoulder blade.

He leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss there, as though his lips were like anchors, as if they alone were heavy enough to keep her from taking flight.


	31. Thirty

The servants of Beckett House took shelter in the kitchen. Being positioned at the rear of the house, its row of windows suffered at the mercy of blunted wind. Though being on the backside of the storm offered little relief; the shutters had been nailed shut with stout crosspieces and still they rattled and slammed and clattered together like frozen teeth.

Beyond them, the hurricane vented its spleen upon Port Royal.

Mr. Stephens and Mrs. Fletcher sat together at a sideboard, lukewarm cups of tea clutched in their hands. They sipped and looked around. The kitchen was crammed full of people and overwrought with sweat and stink, filled with the wavering light of five lanterns, sniffling with undisguised fear. Maids sat with their backs to the wall and linked their hands together. A pair of stable hands murmured the Rosary. The butler and the valet engaged diligently over a game of chess. A cook's boy curled up beneath a tabletop, arms wrapped over his head. He was twelve years old and his name was William and he'd just come in from England the previous spring. One of the maids reached out every so often and touched his foot, laid a hand on his ankle, offering comfort in the midst of this strange weather-torn hot place and tethering him to the febrile quality of his fear and each shrieking moment.

"Quite a howler," said Mr. Stephens.

"I should say! In all my years in the Caribbean I've not encountered a storm so sudden, nor so devastating in nature or swift as this one," said Mrs. Fletcher. "Why, there was no proper warning!"

"Aye, and it wasn't likely." Mr. Stephens sipped his tea. "We've been due a storm of this magnitude for some time now. Twenty year agone such a storm heralded my arrival here. Devastation, you say? Why, this is nothing. Scoured the island clean, that one did. Not a building left a-standin'."

"Heaven forbid this should be the same!"

"Aye. I suspect m'chickens shall fetch up somewheres in New Spain."

"This is not a time for jokes, Mr. Stephens."

"I suspect not. Just the same, I'm hoping the next bunch'll be less afeard of falling coconuts."

"There won't be any left on the trees anyhow!"


	32. Thirty-One

"I would show you something, if you would allow it," said Stella.

The flames fluttered off the stone walls. Howling winds flung themselves against the narrow boarded windows.

Cutler sat in a plush chair with a crystal goblet of wine in his hand. "You may."

Stella left the apartments and returned with a wooden bucket of water. She put it on the floor between his feet, then lifted her skirts and got down on her knees. She looked up at him. He watched her with one languid eyebrow arched and his eyes were lazy, his elbow cast in repose across the arm of the chair, one toe tapping a soft cadence on the stone floor. Stella pushed up her sleeve and took a deep breath and slid her forearm into the water. Cutler's eyes focused on the ripples in the bucket, the undulating shape of her arm beneath the surface of the water. She hissed a little and bit her lip, eyes closing as if in sudden pain. He sipped his wine. She held her breath and seemed to melt into the floor, posture crumbling and sliding forward into something sweet, something malleable and tender. He watched her over the rim of his goblet. Her chest heaved.

"What is in the bucket?"

"Seawater," she said.

Stella waited. The candles burned down and the room smelled of burning wax and ceaseless humidity, of mold taking root in dark places. The stone hummed the strength of the storm and bore its endless violent tides, held fast beneath the onslaught of gently flaying rains. Stella shifted her knees and gripped her arm about the elbow.

"What am I waiting for?"

"Just wait," said Stella.

"Patience is not my strong suit."

"This will be worth your while," she said.

She pulled her arm out of the salt. Water ran and dripped off her elbow, spattering dark splotches into her skirts. She held up her hand. He noticed the gleam of the firelight on her skin, how it seemed too wet. There were no beads of water, no rivulets coursing between tiny little hairs. Her hand and arm were sheathed in smooth shining skin like that of a pale dolphin. She spread her fingers. Between each of them stretched a milky translucent swatch of webbing. This flesh was alive; he could see tiny red blood vessels stitching through it, pulsing and twitching, like the sun passing behind a cat's ears. Her nails had thickened and lengthened and curved into blunt claws. They gleamed iridescent like the scales of a fish. Tears slid down Stella's cheeks. She ignored them.

Cutler was speechless.

"I'm not like you," she whispered.


	33. Thirty-Two

Cutler reached out. Stella extended her wrist to him, allowing the webbed fingers to drape across his soft palm. He cradled her fine-boned hand and pulled it closer to his face. She shifted forward onto her knees, bumping into the bucket with her thighs. The water sloshed. He blinked several times, his lips softened and parted slightly. He trailed the pad of one finger along her polished knuckles. Stella watched him and held her breath. He traced the courses of her deep blue veins. He followed where they branched off into blue lace at the knuckles, weaving deep into the skin of her webs. He held the loose skin between her index and middle fingers, stroking it with his thumb. The flesh was translucent and warm, supple and velvety and lubricious. It reminded him of foreskin. He held her hand and ran a palm down the side of her forearm. He registered the change near her elbow, the tide line of the sea inscribed in her skin. The hairs above her elbow stood at attention. He traced a tiny circle through them and murmured, "Do you register more sensation in your altered skin?"

"N-No." She shook her head. "It feels different, but it doesn't feel…more."

"Does the change give you pain?"

Stella nodded. "Yes. More so to come onto land than to go into water."

"How does it happen?"

"I don't…I don't understand."

"Do you have a tail in water?"

"Yes. Like the animal you call dolphin."

"What do you call it?"

Stella shrugged and opened her mouth, then closed it and flushed deep red. She sat back on her heels and looked at the floor. "It sounds…funny. It is not an English word."

"Look at me, please."

He touched her chin. She looked up.

"What do you call a dolphin in your language?"

"Na'kay."

She uttered the syllables in a guttural rhythm he had never heard before: divided by a clean slice of air, sweet-pitched and musical.

"What do you call your language?"

"It doesn't have a name. Just t'aan, the language. It isn't ours. Language is from land-people."

"How do you speak?"

"T'aan above water. Below just…thoughts. Movements. I don't know how to explain it in words. Things come into your mind. Things go out."

Cutler pushed the bucket of water to one side with his foot. Stella shrank away from it. He pulled on her hand and gestured that she should rise to her feet. She did. He leaned back in the chair and curled a hand around her hip, pulling her forward and down into his lap. She perched on one thigh, her hands resting on her knees. He touched her transformed hand, his fingers skittish and soft on her skin.

"I don't understand," he said.

"It happens when I will it."

"Speak to me with your body. Show me."

"I…it's not so easy, out of the water."

"Try."

Stella took a deep breath. She let it out slowly, hissing it between her teeth, and she put her hand on Cutler's neck. She bent down and rested her forehead on his. She went very still for a moment. She started to breathe with him. The sounds of the room seemed to spiral inward, drawn close around them in the rhythm of shared breath. Cutler grew dizzy. He tried to break away by breathing faster, but her breath followed his without so much as a hitch in timing. He slowed his respiration but she followed, clinging there until he felt weightless and full of exhaustion. He put a hand on her chest, feeling the bones within rise and fall. She put her hand on his ribs, in the same place, just over his heart. The throbbing in his ears slipped into the cadence of her pulse. His skin reverberated with hers. It was as though they shared one set of lungs, one heart, one skin. For one vertiginous second, he couldn't find the place where his body ended and hers began.

_This may be the most profound experience of my life._

"Yes," she whispered. "Profound."

_Are you reading my thoughts?_

"I don't know. Am I?"

_How do you do this? How does it work?_

"There are words," she said. "I hear them."

_I'm not speaking._

"Yes, you are."

_I'm not. Not with words. Not with my mouth._

"Speech comes from the mind. That's what

_(A'al Tene)_

Mama says."

_What? That's what who says?_

"A'al

_(Mama says)_

Tene."

_You are speaking one language and thinking in another._

"Am I?"

"Yes," he said.

"I'm sorry."

_It confuses me._

"Ne mopopohuil

_(It is hard for me)_

…I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize any more," he said.

_I won't._

How long will we be this way?

What do you mean?

Able to speak this way. Without properly speaking.

"As long as you wish it," she said.

"Can people learn this? People like me?"

"It doesn't come naturally to land-people."

_How is it that I can?_

Me.

You?

Yes. I make it easier.

"I am no longer comfortable with this."

"Very well."

Stella pulled back. She let go of his neck and stood up. Cutler took hold of her wrist. "Where are you going?"

"Into the bedroom. I'll leave you with your thoughts. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes, but…"

Stella looked at him. "What?"

"Are you completing my sentence in your mind?"

"No," she said. "You no longer wish to speak in the mind."

He took a deep breath. "Indeed. Go on, then."

Stella walked into the bedroom.

Cutler picked up his half-finished goblet of wine and sipped at it, listening to the rising song of the wind.

_Things shall never be the same._

No.


	34. Thirty-Three

The following morning, the sun rose hot and swathed in mist. Amidst the broken corpses of uprooted trees and tiles pulled loose like rotten teeth, the coconuts burst open against the sides of buildings like sweet milky bombs, and the dead chickens in their heaps of muddy bedraggled feathers, Cutler returned through a milieu of cleaning citizens to his disheveled but otherwise stable office.

There was a piece of parchment weighted down by a globe of carved jade.

_My Dear Cutler,_

I'm so very sorry it has to end this way. I've kindled and now feel a strange and unbearably restless urge to move on. All I ask is that you allow me to pass my confinement in peace.

Please consider this letter a formal resignation from my duties as a chambermaid in your household. My apologies for any disruption this may cause in the performance of domestic duties. In your drawers you will find a sum of money bound up in five leather bags. It is my wish that you use these monies toward hiring my replacement.

I hold you absolved of all responsibility.

Y'aah Nehua (My Love),

Miss Stella West

Cutler let out his breath in a slow tide, unaware until that moment that it had been imprisoned behind his gate of white teeth. His trembling pale fingers crumpled the parchment. He set his fist down on the blotter and tugged open the topmost desk drawer. There, lined up like neat little soldiers, were the purses he had given her. The drawstrings were tied in their original knots. Though accounting would be required to establish a confirmation, his heart knew these were her extra wages: blood money, sweat money, coins that moaned.

He sat down in the chair. A hollow place opened up behind his breastbone, silent and still.

Tomorrow there would be fury. Today there was only quiet lament, like the last gasping breath of a saint.


	35. Thirty-Four

Twenty one people succumbed to the hurricane at Port Royal. Many more nursed injuries running the gamut from scrapes and bruises to brain damage and grotesque broken limbs. One of those unfortunate souls called to Heaven was Mr. Stephens, who fought to corral his chickens through the rising ire of the wind until a loose tree branch collided with the back of his head and killed him instantly. Mrs. Fletcher found him the following morning. The wind had rolled his muddy body up against the foundation of the house and entangled him in a drift of shredded palm leaves. His eyes were half-open and full of sand. Scarlet flower petals clung to his gray cheeks.

The funeral was held graveside, in the evening and by the light of torches so the household staff could attend.

Most of them did. They stood together around the fresh hole in the earth and bowed their heads and wept dirt-smeared tears as the ponderous voice of the preacher rolled over them like cold grasping fog. It was unfair to sum up a life in a handful of generic Bible passages. It was wrong that someone loved in life should seek his final confinement in potter's field. The preacher tossed a white rose into the grave and lead them in prayer. The mourners huddled together and mumbled along even though most of them didn't know the words. It was the well-mannered thing to do, a mark of respect conferred upon the untimely death of a poor man.

* * *

There was a letter addressed to Flora. A soldier delivered it to her at the fort. She took it from him, bewildered at the crisp way he clicked his heels together and the slight bob of his head, greeting her as though she was a high-born maiden instead of a bedraggled kitchen girl. She turned the sealed parchment over in her hands, then cracked the seal and unfolded it to the bright sunlight.

She carried it to James. Red-faced and full of shame, she stood up on tiptoe to whispered into his ear:

"I can't read it. Will you read it to me?"

James found a quiet place on the ramparts. It was not so far away from where he proposed marriage to Elizabeth, what seemed a lifetime before. He read the note aloud in a soft voice.

_Dear Flora,_

I'm sorry that I must leave you like this. It's better for all concerned if I pass the term of my quickening out of sight, far away from prying eyes and wagging tongues. You have been a wonderful friend and I shall miss you every day.

Please, if you can ever forgive me for my abrupt departure, I should like to see you. There is a small stone church on the other side of the island. It stands on the grounds of the old Blackburn sugar plantation and is home to a small cloister of nuns. They are part of a nursing order and consider the succor of unwed mothers a religious responsibility. Once I arrive there and am settled in I will give the Mother Superior a description of you. Do not tell anyone as I will accept no other visitors. It is my present need to close the doors on the world for awhile.

Take care of yourself and all you love.

Your friend,

Stella

James handed the parchment back to Flora with a pensive look. Flora took it from him. Her lip quivered and after a moment she gave into the tears. James guided her head to his shoulder and waited for her bitterness to pass.

* * *

Three days later, Cutler picked up a vase of pink roses and hurled it across the room.


	36. Epilogue

 

He wanted to breathe. The silence blessed, filled with water, and the coolness upon his face. He felt the water move through his clothes. He knew he must be dying. His skin struggled to accept the water.

_Breathe._

His lips parted. He felt lips on his own, closing over his mouth, cool as the water and soft. Moist air rushed into his lungs. It tasted of the sea.

_Yes. Breathe._

He exhaled through his nose. The bubbles tickled and trickled upward along his face, swirled though his hair. He sucked in took another breath. His ears ached. He felt the pressure of the water in his bones. With the breath came the knowledge of arms holding him.

_Y'aah nehua. _

His eyes opened. They stung and he saw a blue blur. Something dark moved through it, a sinuous black cloud. He reached out a hand. His fingers entangled in silken hair. She exhaled into his mouth.

_Be soft. I will pull you._

He hadn't the strength to do much more. The arms tightened around his midsection and he felt the rush of water on his skin. He closed his eyes.

Sometime later he awoke, unaware until that moment that he had been asleep. He felt sun on his face and his clothes dried to his skin. He opened his eyes and squinted into a bright sky. Water broke against rocks. A great green palm frond waved. A woman blotted out the sun and he felt those soft lips on his mouth again, her tongue sliding bits of raw fish onto his. The flesh was creamy, warmed by the heat of her mouth. He swallowed. She fed him more and he swallowed. She took a great bite out of the gnawed underbelly of a fish in her hand and bent down. His eyes came into focus. He lifted his face to hers. His tongue slipped into her mouth. He drew the food into his mouth and swallowed. When she was empty he kissed her.

"Stella," he whispered.

_You must eat._

"I want to hear your voice."

She pulled back enough to be seen. Her hair fell in loose wet curls around his face and for a long moment he looked into her dark eyes.

"Say something to me," he said.

"Cutler."

He touched her face. Her lips curled in a small smile and he felt it take root in his chest. He arched his neck and strained to kiss her. She moved the hair off his forehead and cupped the back of his head and lowered her mouth to his. The velvet heat of it coiled through his limbs. The heavy roots in his chest met the heat in his body and all of it interlaced at his groin. He let a hand trail to her breast, and he cupped its fullness and marveled at its firm weight. Her nipples had grown long and thick and tinted the color of darkest chocolate.

Stella took a bite out of the fish.

_One more. Then I have something for you._

He let her feed him. Then he forced himself to sit up. His head throbbed with the motion and his vision unfocused for a moment and tilted sideways. He waited for the vertigo to cease, closed his eyes, and concentrated on clarity. He opened them again and looked around. He was on a flat rock at the edge of what looked to be an uninhabited island. Palm trees jostled at the waterline. Coconuts floated everywhere.

He looked at Stella. Her breasts floated on the water's surface and he could see her long silver tail undulating. In her arms was a child. The girl looked perhaps two years old, holding on to her mother's arms. She was churning the water with her little tail, pushing herself up out of the water. Her hair stuck to her tiny white shoulders in ringlets. Her eyes were round and blue. Droplets of water clung to the lashes.

They were his mother's eyes.

_Luna._

The little girl looked at him. Her mouth was petite and pink, her cheeks plump. She held him with her gaze.

_Luna._

Little by little he realized it wasn't Stella's voice. This voice was softer, higher-pitched, resonating in a different part of his mind. He felt a bewildering sweep of fierce emotion. Something soft inside him trembled. His breath hitched. He looked into her eyes and the softening unfolded like a flower with sharp petals. It dug into his insides. It gleamed where his heart used to be.

_Luna._

Cutler smiled. He put out his hand. The girl reached out. Their fingertips touched. She grinned.

_Father._


End file.
